Lilliput Legion

Chapter 9

They had brought their twenty-six tiny prisoners back to the apartment on

Threadneedle Street, all bound with their own little ropes and carefully wrapped up in a section of the camouflage netting that had concealed their camp. Finn slowly unrolled the netting, taking care not to damage any of their little prisoners; then he gently laid them all out one by one. on the table top, as if they were wounded combatants in a field hospital. They all suffered this treatment stoically, saying nothing, apparently resigned to whatever fate awaited them.

"Maybe we can find some sort of a valise or something to transport them," Lucas said. "Something soft. We can line it with some cloth or towelling, make sure they don't get tossed around too much."

Delaney took out another parcel in which he had wrapped up the weapons they'd been carrying along with their floater paks and some of the supplies they'd found at their base camp.

"Check the closets," he said. "Maybe there's some bags in there. I just want to get the prisoners off our hands as soon as possible. I'm worried about Andre and

Gulliver."

"I'm worried about them, too, Finn," said Lucas, "but we've got to wait for Darkness. He's the only one who'd know where they were taken."

"That's quite an interesting collection you've got there," said Darkness, suddenly materialising behind them. He projected himself forward through space-time in a rapid series of translocations, leaving behind a trail of ghostly afterimages. He stood over the table and gazed down at the tiny prisoners.

"If you're anxious to be rid of them, I'll take them off your hands."

"You?" said Lucas. He narrowed his eyes suspiciously.

"Why? What would you do with them?"

"Oh, I was thinking I could dress them up in little suits of black or white and use them to play chess," said Darkness, with a perfectly straight face.

"Oh, for cryin' out loud!" said Delaney. "We haven't got time for jokes!"

"Who's joking? They'd make a dandy chess set. Only I'd need thirty-two and you've got only twenty-six. Think you could manage to rustle up another half a dozen?"

"Forget about it," said Delaney. "What's happened to Andre and

Gulliver?"

"They were abducted. "

Delaney rolled his eyes. "Yeah, right. We already know that. Where were they taken?"

"New York City," Darkness said. "The 20th century. September 13, 1992, to be exact."

"Are you sure?"

"I am always sure, Delaney," Darkness said, wryly. "I do not make idle pronouncements. I observed the settings on their warp discs, and to be doubly sure, I followed them. They were clocked to an old warehouse building on Washington

Street. They're in a loft, on the top floor. The man who took them prisoner is some sort of renegade T.I.A. agent, a member of the Network. I didn't hear him say his name, but he's a tall, slim, dark-haired, rather bored-looking individual dressed like a giant boysenberry'. He was holding them there alone, apparently waiting for someone."

"He was waiting for General Drakov," a small voice said from behind them.

They turned to face the table where the Lilliputian prisoners were all laid out.

"What did you say?" Delaney said.

The Lilliputian commander struggled to sit up. "I said, he was waiting for General Drakov. That warehouse on Washing 138

Simon Hawke ton Street was one of our base camps. And the man your friend described sounds like Victor Savino. I've met him. He controls a criminal organisation known as the Family through a man named Domenico Manelli."

"Savino?" said Delaney. "Vic Savino? Tied up with the 20th century Mafia?" He glanced at Lucas with astonishment. "Savino's the T. IA. section chief in that temporal zone. Steiger's mentioned him dozens of times. They started out together.

The man is something of a legend in the agency."

"And he's with the Network," Lucas said. "That means Drakov is not only still alive, but he's hooked up with the Network somehow. The most dangerous enemy we've ever faced, and our own people are involved with him. Christ, I don't believe it!"

"It doesn't make sense." Delaney said, shaking his head. "Why would the Network be involved with Drakov?"

"Because he has something they want," the Lilliputian commander said. "Us.

Hominoids, tailor made to your specifications. All it took was just one demonstration and they let Drakov name his price. "

"Why are you telling us all this?" Delaney said. "Because I'd like to see the bastard burn," the Lilliputian said, to a chorus of grumbling assent from his men.. "Why?"

Delaney said. "And why should we believe you?"

"The son of a bitch marooned us on that island," the Lilliputian leader said. bitterly. "I've seen him squash men underfoot as 'an object lesson in discipline.' We were never people to him. We were cannon fodder. A toy mercenary force that used live ammo. It was kill or be killed. When the hit on

Gulliver went bad and he escaped, Drakov decided to evacuate the island. We're all that's left of the original regiment, the 'first generation,' as he called us. And he hung us out to dry. The second generation helped him do it. They just left us there for you to find. “

"You mean he knew we were coming?" said Delaney.

"He said it was only a matter of time," the Lilliputian leader said. He grimaced. "No pun intended. When he found out Gulliver had escaped with the help of an Observer, he realised that Gulliver would be interrogated and you'd eventually find the confluence and discover the islands. He said that it would be a pity if there was nothing left for you to find."

"So he left you there," Lucas said, "to kill us when we arrived."

The Lilliputian nodded. "He said that our only chance to stay alive would be kill you. We'd have all died anyway. Our commanding officer was killed.. A snake got him. I was the exec." He snorted. "Some great commandos we turned out to be.

There were five hundred of us in the first generation. We're all that's left."

“Well, Lieutenant, regardless of whatever Drakov told you, you're not going to be killed," said Lucas. "We're going to dock you to our headquarters in the 27th century. And you're going to be treated humanely, like prisoners of war. Special arrangements will obviously have to be made for your detention, but nobody's going to kill you. I guarantee it."

"Wait, Lucas," said Delaney, "let's think about this for a minute.”

Lucas frowned. "What do you mean? What's there to think about? We have to deliver the prisoners. Surely, you're not suggesting that we-"

"No, no, of course not," said Delaney. “You know me better than that. I was merely thinking that we might be overlooking an opportunity here." He glanced at the Lilliputian leader. "Lieutenant, how'd you like a crack at your old friend, Drakov'?"

"Finn, no!" said Lucas. “Absolutely not! I know what you're thinking and you can just forget about it!"

"Why?"

"Why? Are you serious? We can't simply dock to the 20th century with a suitcase full of Lilliputians! It's too risky! How do we know we can trust them?"

"When you get right down to it, we don't," said Finn; "But I believe him.

Everything he's told us fits with what we already know about Drakov. And if the

Network is involved, we're going to need help. We can't ask headquarters for backup because we don't know who we can trust back there."

"Maybe not in the T.I.A., but we can trust our own people, the First Division,"

Lucas said.

Delaney shook his head. "They wouldn't have anyone to spare. You don't know what it's been like, Lucas. Ever since Forrester uncovered the Network and set out to break it, it's been all-out war. 'The only people he can trust in the entire agency are our old First Division people and there simply aren't enough of them to go around. Most of them are on adjustment duty, just like we are, and most of the rest are engaged in ongoing undercover work, trying to help expose new Network cells and break them up. We're not only trying to preserve the continuity of the timeline, we're faced with hostilities from the parallel universe and from within the T.I.A., as well. And with the old man in the hospital, Steiger's going to have his hands full. We can't ask him to spare us any reinforcements, Lucas. And even if we could, there’ll be no way to be sure that word of their clocking out to help us wouldn't leak out and someone would clock back ahead of them and warn Savino. "

Lucas-nodded. "Yeah, you're right. I guess it's going to have to be just you and me, like in the old days. Only this time, we've got the Doc along to help us."

“Just one moment," Darkness said. "When did I become a temporal agent?

Somehow, I don't recall enlisting."

"Don't hand me that, Doe," Lucas said. "I don't recall asking to be brought back from the dead and made into an experimental human time machine, either! Now if you want to see how your prototype functions in the field, then I suggest you come along and help, otherwise I'll just go and, do it myself!"

He disappeared.

“Lucas! What the… where did he go?" Delaney said. "Oh, hell," said Darkness.

"I'm afraid he translocated to the 20th century. "

"You mean-"

"Yes, I'm afraid so," Darkness said, with a sigh. "He was thinking about going and doing it himself and that's precisely what he did. I fear I didn't quite get all the bugs out of system. It does tend to interpret one's thoughts rather literally."

"Well, don't just sit there, for God's sake! Go and help him!

He could be in trouble!",

"Not if he keeps his wits about him," Darkness said. He grunted. "That'lI be the day. I'd better go and help him."

He vanished.

Delaney quickly programmed new transition co-ordinates into his warp disc. He glanced down at the Lilliputians.

"If the offer's still open," said the lieutenant, "we accept."

Delaney threw open a closet door and took out a brown leather valise. He grabbed several shirts out of the closet and stuffed them down into the bottom. "All right," be said. setting the valise on the table and carefully cutting the Lilliputians' bonds. "Get inside. But if you try anything, so help me, I'll do the Mexican hat dance on this bag. Let's go."

For a moment, Andre was too stunned to move. First Lucas had miraculously come back from the dead, and now Reese Hunter. But then she realised that this man couldn't possibly be the Reese Hunter she had known, the one who had been brutally murdered by the Timekeepers in 17th century France. This could only be his twin from the parallel universe, an officer in the Counter Insurgency Section — their counterpart to the Temporal Intelligence Agency.

They had met when Forrester had sent them on a mission through a confluence, into the parallel universe, where Nikolai Drakov had pretended to defect only so that he could hijack the S.O.G. 's Project infiltrator along with its brilliant director, Dr. Moreau. It was from Moreau that Drakov had learned how to create his deadly hominoids. Capt. Reese Hunter_ had been sent out to stop him and he had met the

Time Commandos when they were all taken prisoner by Drakov and his homicidal henchman, Santos Benedetto.

They didn't really know each other, and yet, in another sense, they did. This Reese Hunter was not the same man who had helped Andre to avenge her brother's death, but he was identical to that Reese Hunter in almost all respects, as if they had been cut from the same mould. He, in turn, had also known an Andre, although the

Andre he had known in his own universe had been killed while on a mission, just as the Lucas Priest and the Finn Delaney he had known had died. During the time they had shared the same prison cell at Drakov's headquarters on the island of

Rhodes, they had discovered that they "knew" each other well through having known their counterparts. It was an eerie sort of intimacy.

When they had escaped, they had taken Hunter prisoner. There had been no choice, of course. He was the enemy. But once they had crossed over back into their own timeline, Hunter had escaped with a stolen warp disc and they hadn't seen him since. Now there he was, lying on the floor at Andre's feet. badly bruised and battered. He was from the other side, but at the same time, he was indistinguishable from the man who had helped her and changed her entire life. They were the same, right down to their

DNA. As he raised his face to look at her, Andre could not suppress a gasp. And then, involuntarily, she moaned softly.

"Oh, Reese! What have they done to you?"

He squinted up at her through swollen eyelids. "Andre? Is that really you?"

Drakov chuckled. "It's rather like old home week, isn't it?" he said. "It really is amazing how fate keeps throwing all of us together. The late Professor Mensinger doubtless had an equation of some sort to account for how the Fate Factor keeps selecting us out of random temporal zones and manoeuvring us together to resolve our mutually disruptive influence. Well, perhaps this time we can settle things, once and for all."

Andre looked up at him from where she knelt on the floor, beside Hunter. "Drakov, how can you possibly be alive? I saw Forrester kill you!"

"Did you, indeed?" he replied, in an amused tone. "Somehow I've always thought that it would happen the other way around. I trust I died well?"

For a moment, she wondered if Drakov had somehow cheated death like Lucas had. With Nikolai Drakov, it seemed that almost anything was possible. His birth had been a temporal anomaly. He had been conceived when a very young Moses

Forrester, fresh out of boot camp and on his first assignment — in minus time, had been seriously injured and separated from his unit. He had been nursed back to health by a beautiful young Russian gypsy girl named Vanna Drakova. Stranded, crippled and with a damaged implant, young For-rester had thought that he was trapped forever in the past. By the time an S amp; R team finally found him, Vanna was pregnant with his child. Forrester, afraid that Yanna's child would be aborted, never mentioned it and the Search and Retrieve team took him away into the future, never to see the girl he loved again.

Nikolai was born in the middle of a brutal Russian winter storm while Moscow burned during Napoleon's retreat. He had survived when most other infants would have died in such severe conditions. His seemingly miraculous survival and his unusual health were due to the antiagathic drugs that were still active in his father's system, Forrester having received the anti-aging and immunising treatments shortly following his induction into the Temporal Corps.

From what little the uneducated gypsy girl could tell him about his father, Nikolai had formed a picture of some supernatural, demon lover who had abandoned both of them.

For years, he felt that he was cursed, a demon issue, and when his mother was murdered by a knife-wielding rapist who had given Nikolai the scar upon the left side of his face, the bitter, resentment and the fear had turned to savage hatred.

Years later, when he had found out the truth about his father from a woman known as Falcon, the infamous leader of the Timekeepers, Drakov had vowed that he would never rest until Moses Forrester was dead and the timestream was irreparably split. He was, of course, insane. And he was also dead. Andre had seen him incinerated by a plasma blast. So how could he possibly still be alive? And then the only possible explanation struck her.

“My God, you've done it to yourself," she said. "You've created a hominoid from your own genetic template!"

"Very good, Miss Cross," said Drakov, with an appreciative nod. "Very good, indeed. Only that should be hominoids, plural, not singular."

She paled. "How many?"

He smiled. "'Ah, now that would be telling, wouldn't it?

And what's life without a little mystery?"

She stared at him, astounded. "Does.. does that mean that you.. that you're…"

"That I'm what?" said Drakov, smiling. "The original Nikolai Drakov or a hominoid? Interesting question. You see, under normal circumstances, a clone would essentially be a sort of carbon copy, yet not necessarily the same as the original. Such things as culture, environment, experience and so forth play an important part in the formation of a personality. It's not merely a matter of genetics.

However, a hominoid is considerably more than just a clone. There is genetic manipulation and cybernetic surgery, among other esoteric procedures. And when you add time travel child rearing into the equation, what I call 'time lapse maturation,' carefully supervising the development through the years and using implant education to program specific memory engrams, why, then what you might very well wind up with would be a clone who has the same experiences, the same memories, and the same exact personality, carefully cultivated from identical genetic stock. And in such a case, how could you tell the difference? If I were the original Nikolai Drakov, I would naturally know that I was the original. Yet on the other hand, if I were not the original Nikolai Drakov, but I had been given the same memories and personality, how could I ever know?"

"So what are you saying?" said Andre. "That what Forrester killed was a hominoid?"

"Perhaps," said Drakov, smiling slightly, enjoying her confusion. "And perhaps not. Suffice it to say that he killed a Nikolai Drakov. But, as you can see, there are more where that one came from. "

"Dear Lord, I understand absolutely none of this," said Gulliver, miserably. "It seems that I have come full circle somehow. Will this madness never cease?"

"Never fear, Mr. Gulliver," said Drakov. "For you, it will cease all too soon.

You've really become quite an inconvenience. You seem to live a charmed life. I've never met a man who was more inept, yet so difficult to kill. It defies all explanation. "

"Leave him alone, Drakov," Andre said. "He has nothing to do with this."

"My dear Miss Cross, he bas everything to do with this," said Drakov. "If not for him, you would never have stumbled upon this little venture of mine until it was far too late for you to do anything about it. As it is, I was forced to move ahead of schedule and alter my plans somewhat. Altogether, you've been very irritating."

"I think you'll find us a lot more irritating before it's all over, Nikolai," Andre said.

"Really? Oh, I see. You're no doubt anticipating rescue by your two gallant young comrades,… Steiger and Delaney. Well, you may have quite a wait. Knowing those two as I do, I imagine the first thing they did upon questioning young Mr. Gulliver was to go looking for my island base. If they've been unfortunate enough to find it, they will have also found the reception committee that I left behind for them.

Somehow, I doubt you will be seeing them again. In any case, for you, Miss Cross, it is all over. Savino, bring her."

Savino came up behind her and grabbed her by the arm, lifting her up and shoving her away from Hunter.

"Savino?" she said, staring at him. "Vic Savino?" "That's me," he said. "Get moving."

"Traitor." She spat in his face.

He punched her in the jaw and knocked her to the ground. "Coward" shouted Gulliver. "You craven coward, hitting a woman!"

Despite his hands being cuffed behind his back, Gulliver rushed Savino, but Savino merely stepped aside and tripped him.. sending him sprawling

"Enough of this nonsense," Drakov said, irritably. "Bring her, I said!"

Savino grabbed Andre and manhandled her into the elevator. As he got in after them, Drakov beckoned to the two men he had brought with him. He indicated

Gulliver and Hunter.

"'Kill them and dispose of the bodies in the river," he said. "No! Wait!" shouted Gulliver.

The elevator doors closed.

The two men came forward, reaching inside their custom tailored jackets.

Dr. George Ericson, the chief hospital administrator, was not pleased with Lt.

Harris and he let him know it in no uncertain terms.

"Now look here, Sergeant-" he began.

"Lieutenant," Harris corrected him, testily. It was not an auspicious beginning.

"Lieutenant," the administrator said, his tone clearly indicating that whether it was sergeant or lieutenant made not the slightest bit of difference to him. "This has to stop immediately. I can't have you turning this hospital into an armed camp."

“This hospital is on a military base, sir," said Harris, wryly. "It's right in the middle of an 'armed camp,' as you put it."

"I fail to see what that has to do with anything, “ Ericson said, impatiently. "You have literally invaded this hospital with your armed guards. It's disturbing the patients and the staff feel practically besieged. We simply cannot have this. I cannot allow you and your men to goon harassing the patients and the staff, making everyone coming in and out submit to being searched, checking identification, really, it's quite intolerable. By what authority do you-"

"By the authority of the acting base commander, Col. Steiger, sir," said Hams, interrupting him. "That gives me all the authority I need. As to invading this hospital, sir, that's precisely what we're here to prevent."

"You're disturbing the patients-"

"I don't really think that we're disturbing any of the patients, sir. Most of them are military personnel in the first place and would certainly understand the need for security under the circumstances. Thc only patients who can even see any evidence of additional security on the premises are those who were up on General Forrester’s floor and they've all been moved. Our people up there are doing all they can to make their presence as inconspicuous as possible."

"Nevertheless," Ericson persisted, "this entire so-called security operation of yours is an unwarranted intrusion and it's interfering with the function of this hospital. It simply won't do. I cannot allow it to continue."

"I think what's happening, sir," Harris said, evenly, "is that your doctors are complaining about being searched every time they come into the hospital or pass one of the interior checkpoints we've established. And frankly, sir, that's tough.

You might remind them that one member of the hospital staff has already been murdered by an infiltrator. We're here to see that it doesn't happen again."

"Well, I take the strongest possible exception to this," the chief administrator protested.

"I'll make a note of it, sir," said Harris.

"Don't you condescend to me, Sergeant-"

"That's Lieutenant," Harris said.

"Whatever. I demand to speak to your superior officer at once”

“That would be Col. Steiger, sir"," said Harris.

"Fine, I'll speak to him."

"As you wish, sir."

"Well?" said Ericson.

Harris sighed wearily. "Well, what? Sir."

"I'm waiting."

"For what?"

"For you to go and get Col. Steiger,' of course!" the chief administrator said, as if Harris were a total idiot.

Harris lost his patience. "What the hell do I look like to you, an errand boy? You think the acting base commander's going to come running just because you snapped your fingers? In case it's escaped your attention, Dr. Ericson, the base is on full alert and the reason General Forrester is in this hospital is because there have already been several attempts on his life and the last one damn near succeeded!

Now I'm here to do a job and I don't intend. to leave my post simply because some prima donna doctors have been inconvenienced. Now if you want to speak to the acting base commander, I suggest you go through the proper channels and request an appointment. If Col. Steiger thinks that your request warrants sufficient priority, he'll see you, but frankly, I wouldn't hold my breath. Now get the hell out of my face. I've got work to do."

The chief administrator looked as if he were about to have apoplexy. "How dare you speak to me like that? Who do you think you are? I'll have your stripes for this!"

"I haven't got any goddamn stripes;" said Harris, rolling his eyes. "I'm a commissioned officer. Now I'm really trying not to lose my temper, but-"

"You are the most arrogant, insolent, and uncooperative young man I've ever met!"

Ericson said, puffing himself up like a blowfish. "Now I demand to see Col. Steiger this very instant, do you hear me? This very instant!"

"That's it," Harris said, "I've had it. If you're not out of here in three seconds, I'm placing you under arrest. One…"

"Arrest?" The administrator’s face turned purple and his eyes bulged. "On what charge?"

Two…

"You must be out of your mind! You wouldn't dare-" Three, Donnelley, Kruger, place this man under arrest.” As the two men moved in to take the astonished hospital administrator into custody, a well-dressed man hurried past the checkpoint, carrying a briefcase.

"'Wait a minute!" Hums called after him.

"Can't stop now!" the man called back over his shoulder as he hurried on. "I'm Dr.

Blake, I'm due in surgery! It's an emergency!"

"Stop!" shouted Harris.

The man ignored him. "Stop that man! Right now!"

Donnelly and Kruger forgot about the hospital administrator and rushed after Dr.

Blake, drawing their weapons as they ran.

"Now see here!" the chief administrator shouted as he hurried after them. "You men! Stop! You can't do that! That man's on his way to an emergency surgery! You can't-"

"Ericson!" Harris shouted. "Get back here!"

Dr. Blake suddenly dropped his briefcase on the floor, sliding it towards the lift tubes. Then he pivoted around sharply, drawing a plasma pistol from a shoulder holster.

"Look out!" yelled Kruger.

Donnelly dived to the right while Kruger leaped to the left as "Blake" fired. The plasma charge took Dr. Ericson full in the chest as he came running up behind them. He screamed as the searing heat enveloped him and then an instant later, his charred remains fell to the floor. As the briefcase stopped sliding, there was a faint, explosive pop and the lid flew open. A bright, incandescent glow came from within the briefcase.

Harris fired his weapon and dropped "Blake" in his tracks, but even as he did so, a swarm of Lilliputians equipped with floater paks came rising up out of the briefcase.

"Jesus Christ," Harris said, grabbing for his communicator. "He's got a chronoplate in there! Donnelly, Kruger! Fire! Fire!"

As the two men laid down a crossfire in the hospital corridor, Harris shouted into the communicator.

"Mayday! Mayday! Assault in progress at Post 1!"

The lift tube doors revolved around and a group of hospital staff members stepped out right into the line of fire. Three of them were killed instantly, the rest dispersed, screaming and beating at their flaming clothing or clutching at themselves

Where a dozen miniature lasers had sliced through bone and sinew as easily as if it were warm butter.

The Lilliputians swarmed into the lift tube and more kept on coming from the briefcase. Four security men came running down the hall and two of them went down at once. Donnelly, trying to get around the screaming wounded, caught several laser beams in his head and upper torso. He fell to the floor without a sound.

"Harris, this is Steiger. What's going on down there?" "It's a goddamn invasion!"

Harris shouted into the communicator as reinforcements from the other hospital entrances started to arrive upon the scene. "We're got casualties down here! I've got several men down! They're coming through a temporal transit field, Lilliputians, hundreds of them! I can't get to it! They've gotten to a lift tube and they're headed up your way!"

"Damn it!" Steiger swore. "How the hell did they get through? Destroy that field, Harris! Cut 'em off, right now, no matter what it takes!"

"Right," said Harris, gritting his teeth. He dropped the communicator and took out his plasma sidearm. "My goddamn fault. My own, stupid, goddamn fault…"

He held his plasma pistol out before him, took a deep breath and starting running down the hall, right into the line of fire. He screamed, "Get down! Get down!" and fired as he ran, his pistol cycling rapidly. The Lilliputians returned his fire, but he kept on coming, right into the deadly web of laser beams, aiming at the briefcase that a small band of Lilliputians was frantically trying to shove into an open lift tube. Harris kept on coming, screaming as he charged them, firing into their midst, incinerating them as they swarmed up out of the temporal transit field and destroying the skirmish line they'd quickly set up in the lobby, pinning his men down. He was within fifteen feet of the lift tubes when his plasma pistol cycled through, the charge pak exhausted.

With a roar of rage, he flung it at them and made a flying dive over their heads, crushing a half a dozen of them beneath him as he fell. Smashing at the Lilliputians with his fists and sweeping them out of the way, he scrambled for the briefcase, reaching inside and with his last breath, fumbling for the controls. He didn't make it. He died before he could shut down the field.

Steiger was running flat out down the hall, shouting instructions as he went.

"They're on their way up! Cover the stairs and fire exits! Cordon off the area around all access points to this corridor! Nobody gets through! Heads up, people!

Here they come!"

The first tube came up and the chime rang softly as the door revolved. Steiger's men fired as it slid open. The interior of the lift tube was slagged with plasma, but not before some of the Lilliputians managed to get out, some coming out low, on foot, firing as they ran, while others came out high, swarming out in their floater paks and rapidly dispersing, firing down at the men in the corridor below them.

At the same time, a cry went up from down the hall. A squad of airborne

Lilliputians was coming up the fire stairs. The men covering the stairs immediately opened fire as Steiger ran from one point of conflict to the other. A filament-thin laser beam lanced past his left temple, missing his head by a quarter of an inch. He threw himself to one side, struck the corridor wall, and spun around. A Lilliputian in a floater pak came down at him from just below the ceiling, like a fighter on a strafing run, his tiny autopulser cycling rapidly. Steiger fired and the Lilliputian burst into flame, then exploded as the tanks on his tiny floater pak went up. Steiger shielded his face as little bits of burning shrapnel rained down on him.

Behind him, down the hall, the corridor was in flames. The Lilliputians were outgunned, but the same plasma weapons that enabled Steiger's men to shoot down such small and rapidly moving targets were also setting the hospital on fire. The sprinklers had gone off, but they were not sufficient to the task and Steiger couldn't risk sending in the fire brigade until the battle was all over. It wasn't simply a question of defeating the tiny invaders; they had to do it within the next few minutes or else the fire would endanger the patients on the lower floors.

He rushed to the stairwell. Several of his men were dead, some killed by the tiny commandos, but at least two were killed by fire from their own men, trying to shoot down airborne Lilliputians who were darting among them like angry wasps.

The walls and stairs were blackened and burning as Steiger came through the door, but none of the Lilliputians had gotten past his men. There was a pitched battle in the stairwell as the tiny invaders were being driven back.

And then another cry went up. They were coming out of a second lift tube. Steiger and his men ran out into the hall. Perhaps two dozen Lilliputians were in full flight, hurtling towards them down the corridor. Steiger's men and the Lilliputians opened fire simultaneously. The man on Steiger's right screamed briefly as a laser burned through his brain and

he fell dead on the floor. Half a dozen Lilliputians went up in a blast of plasma, several of them spinning end over end, in flames and out of control, exploding as they hit the corridor walls and their propellant tanks went up.

A few of them got past Steiger and he winced with pain as a laser burned his shoulder, then he was turning and sprinting after them. They were headed down the corridor, straight for Forrester’s room. Several of them hovered around the door lock, providing covering fire while two of them aimed their lasers at the lockwork.

They burned through the door in a matter of seconds. Steiger and his men ran directly into the deadly laser fire, firing into the beams with their plasma weapons to break up their collimation.

Steiger couldn't believe it. The Lilliputians seemed to have no regard whatsoever for their own survival. Like miniature kamikazes, they flew right at him and his men, corkscrewing in erratic loop-de-loops with their jets on full power. It was like trying to shoot down a flight of crazed hummingbirds. The man on Steiger's left fell. Steiger bent down and wrenched the plasma rifle out of the dead man's grasp, but there wasn't even enough time to slap a fresh charge pal: into it. He brought up the rifle stock sharply, smacking a Lilliputian in full flight. The Lilliputian caromed off the rifle stock like a baseball and tumbled end over end, his jets damaged and out of control. He slammed into another tiny commando and they exploded in mid air, the shrapnel from the floater paks lacerating Steiger's face. He didn't even feel it. He bolted straight for Forrester's room, but the Lilliputians had already flown inside. They swooped down over the bed, their lasers playing over the shape beneath the covers. As Steiger burst into the room, he heard someone yell, "GET

BACK!" and he recoiled as the blue mist of Cherenkov radiation flooded the room.

The awesome weapon's transponder lapped directly into the energy field of a neutron star by means of an internal chronocircuitry link with an Einstein-Rosen Generator in outer space. The result was a limitless supply of "ammunition" in the form of energy leached through a time warp from a star. The magnetic field generated around the muzzle formed an invisible forcing cone that allowed selective fire-a stream of neutrons fired on either a tight beam or a wide dispersal

"spray." The entire room glowed blue for an instant and the attacking Lilliputians disappeared, their atoms disrupted by the neutron stream.

The bed also disappeared, as well as the night table, the drip I.V. stand, the lamp and the entire wall. A cold night wind blew in through the gaping hole where the wall had been. The edges of the hole were as smooth as melted glass. Forrester stood in the corner of the room, with his back against the wall. He lowered the strange looking weapon. It resembled a small flame-thrower, with a knurled pistol grip and an unusually shaped muzzle, only without the attached hose and tanks.

Steiger walked over to the hole in the wall. It was about twelve feet across and eight feet high. Steiger stepped up to the edge and looked down 110 stories. the wind plucked at his hair and clothes, its coolness soothing to the wounds on his face.

"Jesus Christ," he said, softly.

Forrester came up to stand beside him, holding the disruptor in his right hand. It was difficult to believe that something the size of a sawed-off shotgun could have done such damage.

"I think we've got a slight problem here with over penetration," Forrester said, wryly. "Darkness always did overdo things. Sure works, though. If he ever gets all the bugs out, I might actually consider making these standard issue.".

Steiger simply stared at him.

"You look terrible," said Forrester.

"Yeah," said Steiger. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, then snapped on his communicator. "This is Steiger. All posts, report."

"Post 1, sir. Lafferty here. All secure down here." "Casualties?"

Four dead, two wounded, sir. Should I send in the fire brigade, sir? We've got alarms going off all over the place."

"Yeah, send 'em in. Make sure we get all the wounded out and stand by to evacuate patients…Get additional personnel in if you have to. Steiger out."

"Post 2, sir. Cpl. Steinberg reporting. Everybody's dead. I'm the only one left. But we're secure, sir. That is, I'm secure. I guess. I mean… hell, I don't know, I-"

"Pull yourself together, Steinberg. You all right?"

"I've been hit, sir, but it's not serious, I don't think. I mean, I'll manage. "

"Good man. Hang in there, we'll get someone to you as soon as we can.

Stand by."

And on it went. Every single post, men dead, men wounded, but the attack had been repulsed. Fortunately, none of the hospital patients had been hurt. The

Lilliputians had known exactly where to go and they had struck directly at the top floor. Now they were all dead. They had given no quarter and asked none. Steiger and Forrester went out into the corridor, filled with smoke and flames, steaming from the sprinklers interacting with the heat, blackened from the plasma blasts, scarred by laser fire, littered with bodies.

"Oh, God damn it to hell," said Forrester. his voice breaking slightly. "All this just because of me."

"Don't do that to yourself, Moses," Steiger said. "This is a war. And the Network has a lot to answer for."

"And they're going to answer for it, believe me," Forrester said grimly. "We were lucky this time, but the entire top part of this building will have to be evacuated.

Christ, how many of them were there?"

“I don't know," said Steiger. "It seemed like hundreds. But we stopped

'em. We stopped 'em cold."

"Yes, for now," Forrester said. "But I can't risk another attack like that. I can't stay here. It's too dangerous to the other patients and the hospital personnel."

"But you haven't been released fur duty-"

"After this, I don't think you'll get any arguments from Dr. Hazen or any of the staff," said Forrester. "Get me out of here, Creed. I'm going back to headquarters. We've got a lot of work to do." Chapter 10

Lucas materialised in the middle of Washington Street. For a moment, he did not know where he was; then a blast from a diesel truck's air horn caused him to leap to one side, narrowly avoiding being run down.

"Get outta the road, asshole!" the trucker yelled out the open window as he rumbled by.

Lucas looked around. The area he stood in resembled a war zone. The street was pockmarked with pot holes. The side-walks were cracked and buckling. The warehouses all around him were shuttered and boarded up and covered with graffiti. An abandoned car was rusting on its wheel hubs, the wheels long since stolen. The rest of the car had been stripped. the windows shattered and an uprooted traffic sign had been hurled through the windshield, like a harpoon transfixing a whale-an eloquent commentary on the mindless fury and frustration of the scuttlefish who crawled these streets at night.

And it was getting dark.

“New York City," Lucas said, realising where he was.

"Damn. I've done it again."

He groaned and brought his hands up to his head, pressing them flat against his temples. His head felt as if it were about to burst. The pain rivalled the worst hangover he'd ever had. It

kept fading in and out, as if someone were flickering a switch on and off.

He cursed Darkness and his damned telempathic chrono-circuitry although without his interference, Lucas knew he wouldn't even be alive. Still, it was a mixed blessing. Each time he thought he had a handle on it, he'd somehow lose control and flip through time and space like some sort of leaf blown on a temporal wind.

And the more often he did it, the greater the strain seemed to be. Obviously, he required a period of recuperation after each translocation. Darkness had warned him about that.

Curiously, the amount of time and space he covered during each translocation seemed to make no difference. Whether he translocated from one side of a room to another or from Darkness's secret laboratory headquarters all the way to Earth, it seemed to feel the same. The sensation upon arrival was not altogether unlike what most people felt upon making transition via the old chronoplates or the warp discs that superseded them, although the vertiginous feeling was minimised some-what with the warp discs. The initial translocation-the departure-took place so fast that it was impossible to notice it happening. It occurred literally with the speed of thought. But immediately upon arrival, there was the unpleasant sensation of vertigo and a curious coldness, as if a chill mountain breeze were blowing through his body, whistling in between the bones and organs, making every single nerve fibre shiver. And he had noticed that the effects seemed to be increasing every time.

He often wondered if Darkness even had a clue to what he was doing. That the man was a genius on a level beyond anything that anyone had ever known was indisputable, but at the same time, and perhaps because of that, he was also utterly incomprehensible. He often agonised over the ethical implications of his work, yet the rights of individuals meant nothing to him. This was not the time to be concerned about such things, Lucas realised. He was in a dangerous neighbourhood and it was getting dark. Somewhere nearby, Andre and Gulliver were being held prisoner by the Network. And Lucas had no weapons.

Where the hell was Darkness?

The shadows lengthened as night fell on the city. This wasn't the kind of darkness that I had in mind, thought Lucas. Why hadn't Darkness followed him? He looked up and down the street.. He had absolutely no idea where Andre and Gulliver were being held. There were warehouses and old factory buildings along both sides of the street. They could be in any one of them.

Then he saw a sleek black Cadillac, a stretch limousine, turning slowly into the street. It was definitely not the sort of vehicle one expected to encounter in this area of town. He quickly translocated behind the abandoned car. The limo pulled up in front of an old brick warehouse building with graffiti all over the door; and two men got out, dragging a third between them. The front door on the other side of the car opened and another man got out. Even at that distance, Lucas recognised the massive figure of Nikolai Drakov.

He watched Drakov and the others go into the building. The limousine waited at the curb, its motor running. Lucas gasped, slumping down behind the wrecked car as the pain washed over him again, coming and going, coming and going, like waves crashing on a shore. Everything started to spin around. He sagged against the car and slip down to the street.

"Hey, mah man.."

"He's wasted."

"Yo, got any money, my man?"

He felt hands on him, turning him around, patting down his pockets.

"Yo, man, check out the boss threads, man! I gotta get me them threads!"

"Fuck the threads, where the hell's the money? Hey, dude, where the hen's the money, dude?"

"Get away…" Lucas said, clumsily pushing at them, desperately trying to focus and ignore the pain.

Something went snik and he felt the sharp point of a switchblade pressed up beneath his chin.

"Awright, muthafucker, where's the bread? I cut you, man.

C'mon, where you got it stashed?"

"Maybe in his boots."

"Check his belt."

He felt their hands fumbling at his clothes and he tried to resist, hut the knife blade pressed up against the underside of his chin again. He struggled against the pain and dizziness, trying to focus in on his attacker;. They were little more than just a blur, but he could tell that there were three of them. Slowly, they resolved into distinct figures. One was white, two were black, dressed in tatterdemalion, street-punk style studded and fringed leather, motorcycle jackets with chain mm, patched jeans, engineer boots or brightly coloured, hightop sneakers and T-shirts or bright tank tops with printed designs. They had pierced ears, spiked bracelets, chains, studded choker collars. One wore his hair in a short Mohawk, another had a crew cut and the third had shaved his head completely.

Lucas felt his boots being pulled off, then his trousers. One of them started opening his shirt.

'Sheeit. man, he ain't got no money!"

"Ain't got no damn watch, no rings, nuthin, man! Someone musta already rolled 'im!"

"I'm gonna do hi'm," said the one with the knife. "Shoot, forget it, man. C'mon, least we got the clothes." "I wanna cut him."

Lucas felt hot, stinking breath on his face.

"So cut him and c'mon, man, I ain't got no time for this shit!"

The one with the knife knelt over him, his eyes glittering wildly.

Lucas suddenly reached out and his fingers closed tightly around the hand holding the knife. He struck out hard with his other hand and smashed the punk's windpipe.

The punk's eyes went wide with pain and sudden terror as he made gagging, choking noises and sagged down to the sidewalk, gargling on his own blood.

“Hey, what the- "

Lucas came up with the punk's knife in his hand. "Son of a bitch!"

The punk with the shaved head reached up and unsnapped the leather epaulet on his motorcycle jacket, pulling down the steel chain he wore around his shoulder. The other one dropped the clothes they took off Lucas and reached into his back pocket. He pulled out a butterfly knife and opened it with a quick flick of the wrist.

They moved apart and came at him from two sides. Lucas befted the switchblade, found its balance point, shifted his grip and flung it with a quick, underhanded motion. It struck the punk with the butterfly knife, sinking into his torso, right under the rib cage. He grunted with surprise, clutched his chest and collapsed onto the street. The remaining punk snarled and

brought the chain down hard. Lucas took the blow on his upraised forearm, wincing as the shock travelled up his arm. He twisted his wrist, grabbed the chain, yanked sharply and smashed the punk in the face before he could regain his balance. The punk lost his grip on the chain and staggered backwards, bleeding from his broken nose. He gave Lucas a terrified look as he scrambled back, then stooped, snatched up the black fatigues and took off down the street at a dead run.

"You bastard! My clothes!" shouted Lucas, throwing the chain after him furiously.

Only his boots remained lying on the street. "Great! Just fucking great!"

There be was, alone in one of the worst areas of 20th century New York. Andre and Gulliver were being held prisoner by Nikolai Drakov, and he was standing in the middle of Washintgon Street in his underwear with two dead bodies at his feet.

All be needed now was for a police car to come by. Although that wasn't very likely. The police knew better than to cruise a neighbourhood like this.

Lucas glanced down at the two dead punks. They looked none to clean, but the one with the Mohawk was just about his size. With a grimace of distaste, Lucas stripped off the punk's clothes. He slipped on the tight-fitting black jeans and the motorcycle jacket, after wiping some of the blood off. -He. hoped he wouldn't get lice, but if be did, it wouldn't be the first time. He walked over to the other corpse, pulled the switch-blade free and picked up the butterfly knife the punk had dropped. As serious weapons, they left a lot to be desired, but they were better than nothing.

He glanced back toward the building Drakov had gone into just in time to see him coming out again. The man with him had to be the Network man Darkness had described. He was pushing Andre ahead of him into the limousine. There was no sign of Gulliver.

“Darkness, damn it, where the hell are you?" Lucas said, watching as they got into the car. "Delaney…"

But there was no sign of them. He had to do something. The limo was pulling away from the curb and making a U-turn in the middle of street. His gaze fell on the trunk.

All right, he thought, here goes nothing. Desperately hoping that his telempathic chronocircuitry could compute the time-space co-ordinates and the trajectory from the input — of his

senses, Lucas stared hard at the trunk of the departing limousine, willing himself into it.

He tached.

Gulliver shook his head, backing away as the two gunmen came toward him. "No, please," he said. "Don't. "

The men grinned, aiming their guns. Suddenly, both guns flew out of their hands and disappeared.

The gunmen stared, dumbfounded, and then a voice spoke from behind them.

"Are you gentlemen looking for these?"

Dr. Darkness stood behind them, flickering like a stroboscopic ghost. He held out his hands. A gun rested in each palm.

“Hey!" said Finn Delaney.

Both gunmen spun around to see Delaney, who had materialised within a foot of them. He reached out quickly and slammed their heads together. They both collapsed to the floor.

"That was a little tight there, Doctor," said Delaney.

"Another foot closer and it would've gotten messy."

Darkness shrugged. "How was I to know that they'd be standing there?"

Gulliver shut his eyes and almost sobbed with relief. "Delaney!"

Finn glanced down at the figure sprawled out on the floor.

"Well, well," he said. "Look what we've got here. I believe we've recaptured an escaped prisoner."

"Damn you, Delaney, get me loose," said Hunter.

"You know this man, Delaney?" Darkness said.

"I knew his twin," Delaney said. "Dr. Darkness, meet Capt.

Reese Hunter, of the Counter Insurgency Section of the Special Operations

Group." He bent down over Hunter and cut his bonds with his commando knife.

"You look like hell," he said.

"I feel like hell," said Hunter. He got up to his feet and winced.

"Where's Andre?" said Delaney, using his laser to burn through Gulliver’s cuffs.

"Drakov took her," Gulliver said.

"Yeah, you just missed 'em," Hunter said.

"Damn! What about Lucas?"

"Lucas?" Hunter said, rubbing his sore wrists. "Lucas Priest? I thought he was dead. "

"It's a long story," said Delaney. "I don't suppose you have any idea where he took her?"

Hunter shook his head. His gaze fell on Darkness and he stared. "Say, pilgrim, am I still punchy or am I actually seeing through that guy?"

"Yeah, well, that's a long story. too," Delaney said, taking the two guns from Dr.

Darkness. One was a Browning Hi-Power, the other was a Czech CZ-75. "Premium hardware for this time period," said Delaney, examining the pistols. He glanced at Hunter. "You know how to use these?”

"9-mm semi-autos?" Hunter said. "Yeah, I can manage. Why, don't tell me you're actually going to arm an escaped prisoner?"

"I'm going to take a chance," Delaney said, handing rum the Hi-Power. "Now you can shoot me in the back with that thing or you can help. It's up to you. Drakov isn't just our enemy. he's yours as well. I figure any business we've got between us can wait till this is finished. What do you say?"

"All right. I'm in. I've got a score to settle with that man." "Truce?" Delaney said, offering his hand.

"Truce," said Hunter. They shook.

Hunter hefted the Hi-Power in his hand. He jacked out the magazine and checked to see that it was full, then slapped it back in. He tucked the gun into his waistband in the small of his back.

Delaney beckoned to Gulliver. — "Lem. come over here. Take this one," be said, handing him the black CZ.

“I have never seen such a gun," said Gulliver, dubiously.

"This one's a lot easier to shoot then anything you might have seen," Delaney reassured him. "It has two different carry modes, double action or cocked and locked. You're only going to worry about one, the double action. If you want to shoot, all you do is point the gun and squeeze the trigger, simple as that.

You can fire fifteen shots without reloading."

"Fifteen? Without reloading?"

"As fast as you can pull the trigger," said Delaney. "But don't fire all fifteen. It's better to shoot in groups of three. Now the trigger pull on the first shot is going to be a little stiffer than on the succeeding ones, so be

'prepared for that. And use two hands, like this."

Delaney demonstrated a proper combat stance and showed him how to sight.

Gulliver gingerly took the pistol and followed his example. "Good. It will kick a bit, but don't let that throw you." Hunter watched the brief instruction session with curiosity.

"Are you sure he knows what he's doing? Just what time period is he from, anyway?

“Well, that's-"

"Yeah, I know. A long story.-Never mind. Forget I asked." "Sorry, Hunter, but you're on a need-to-know basis. You are from the other side, after all."

"Yeah, sure. It's just that I'd feel better about this if we had a little more help. "

~

"We do," said Delaney. He picked up a leather valise that was sitting on the floor on the spot where he'd clocked in.

"What's that?" Hunter said.

"A little more help," Delaney said. “Very little."

The limousine turned left on the Avenue of the Americas, known to native New

Yorkers simply as Sixth Avenue, then headed north towards the fashionable neighbourhood of Soho, short for "South of Houston."

"Where are you taking me?" said Andre.

"Patience, Miss Cross," said Drakov. "All will become self-evident before too long. "

"Why, Drakov?" she asked. "Why work for the Network?

What are you after?"

"I should think that would be obvious, Miss Cross," said Drakov. "The Network pays me very well and I find their logistics support extremely helpful. They are very well organised, you know. Quite impressive. Not even the Timekeepers operated on such a scale. There is, in addition, a certain delightful irony to being subsidised by what is essentially a branch of my father's own organisation. And in that, regard, we have certain mutual goals in mind, don't we, Mr. Savino'?"

She glanced at Savino with contempt. "Steiger said you were a section chief in the 20th Century, but I never made the connection. From the way be talked about you, I never would have believed you were a traitor."

"A traitor?" said Savmo, in that same, curiously unemo tional tone. "That's interesting. To what or to whom am I a traitor? To the country? How? I haven't sold the country out. To the agency?" He shook his head. "I haven't sold the agency out, either. In fact, I've been instrumental in bringing a considerable amount of revenue into the agency. True, I'm not exactly playing by the rules, but the idea of a clandestine intelligence organisation playing by any set of rules is patently absurd. "

"Oh, I see," said Andre. "I guess I just didn't understand. And taking part in a plot to assassinate the director of the T. IA., that's nothing more than interdepartmental politics, right?"

"Forrester brought it on himself," Savino said. "I'm sure he never paused to consider the complexities that gave rise to an entity such as the Network or the conditions that make its existence necessary. I doubt he ever gave any thought to the consequences involved in dismantling the Network."

Andre snorted derisively. "'Are you seriously trying to tell me that the Network is a necessary organisation?"

"Absolutely," said Savino. "'That's something your friend and mine, Creed Steiger, will probably never understand. You probably can't understand it, either. You both seem to share the same delusion. You believe in absolutes. You think there's such a thing as right and wrong. "

"'How foolish of us," Andre said, sarcastically.

Savino shook his head with resignation. "You people in the First Division always had it easy compared to what we had to do. By the time you got involved, your objectives were clearly delineated. You weren't sent in unless there was a specific situation to be dealt with and you always knew what the parameters of your missions were, thanks to us and the Observers. We did the scout work. We pinpointed the temporal anomalies. We gathered the intelligence that made it possible for you to do your job. "

"And you feel you didn't get enough credit or compensation, is that it?" Andre said.

Savino shook his head. "No, not me. Maybe some people in the Network feel that way, I can't speak for everybody, but I've never felt like that. In the old days, when Steiger and I were starting out as field agents, we weren't after glory or compensation. Doing our duty was enough. Besides, we were young. We got off on the adventure. But as time went on, the thrill

wore off. And I began to realise something. That what we were doing was like trying to stop a horde of locusts with a fly swatter.

"It was impossible to do the job that we were being asked to do and still play by the rules," Savino continued. "The thing was, nobody really cared when it came right down to it. The legislators gave a lot of lip service to 'working for the cause of peace' and 'bringing the Time Wars to a halt,' but when it came time for appropriations for funding temporal defence plants in their districts, guess which way they voted? When it came time to make spending cuts so they could say they were trying to balance but the budget, did they cut appropriations that funded jobs in their own districts? Did they maybe refuse to vote themselves their annual salary increase? No, they cut services everywhere they could, instead. And they kept chipping away at our budget every year. But they still wanted us to keep doing the same job, a job that kept on getting more and more impossible to do. And they wanted us to do it by the book. Even that was so much lip service. Most of them didn't care one way or another, so long as the job got done and nobody got caught."

"Steiger cares," she said.

"Yeah, well, he would," Savino said. "He wound up working with a man named Carnehan after a few years. Name mean anything to you?"

"Col. Jack Carnehan," she said. "Codename: agent Mongoose. "

Savino nodded. "Yeah. He was the best. A goddamned legend. But crazy. A real danger junkie. And there was one other thing that made him different. He really believed that the good guys always win. "

Savino's lips twisted into a wry, sad little half smile.

"It was amazing, really. In some ways, Carnehan was like a kid who never grew up. He kept on playing the same games, only at some point, the games started to be played for keeps and he just never noticed. Steiger bought into the whole trip all the way. I suppose I can even understand it. Old Jack had a lot of style. Charisma with a capital C. And Creed was young. He fell under the man's spell. "

Savino was staring straight ahead, his eyes slightly unfocused, as he recalled the past. His face and voice were touched with melancholy. It was the first real emotion Andre had seen in him.

"The thing was," Savino went on, "Carnehan didn't really play by the rules, either.

He didn't exactly break them, but he sure bent a lot of them all to hell. The same as you commandos do. You call it 'throwing away the book.' Improvising in the field.

Well, hell, that's all we ever did. We threw away the book and improvised."

"You did a lot more than that," said Andre. "You crossed over the line." She glanced at Drakov and saw him listening with an amused expression on his face.

"Crossed over the line," Savino repeated, mockingly. "Where is the line? And who decides where it should be drawn? You? Me? Forrester? Some legislator who's never been on the minus side and hasn't got the faintest idea of what we're up against? Don't you understand? It's all arbitrary."

"Well, if you believe that, then I guess anything you do becomes justifiable," said Andre. "And obviously, you've worked very hard at believing it. You really sold yourself a bill of goods, Savino. I just hope it didn't cost you too much."

They made a right on West Eleventh Street and pulled up in front of the black double doors of Il Paradiso. Savino draped his jacket over Andre's shoulders, covering the handcuffs, then helped her out of the car. As he took her arm and drew her close, she felt the sharp point of a stiletto digging into her side.

"A nightclub?" said Andre. "What's this, another Network front?"

"No, actually, this club is operated by the Mafia," Drakov said.

"The Mafia?" Andre said, with disbelief.

"Sort of a sideline for the local capo," Drakov explained. "It allows him to rub elbows with the artsy set and feel sophisticated." He held the door for them. "Oh, by the way, most of the employees of this establishment are perfectly ordinary citizens with little or no knowledge of the proprietor's criminal activities.

Attempting to give alarm or otherwise involve any of them would only endanger them needlessly. And you wouldn't want to do that, would you, Miss Cross?"

Savino pricked her slightly with the knife and she winced.

"All right, you've made your point."

They went inside.

The club wasn't open yet, but the young employees were all bustling about, getting everything ready. There were several bartenders behind the garish, guitar-shaped bar, peeling lemons, slicing limes, setting bottles into the wells and turning on their beer taps. Waitresses were setting up tables and a crew of roadies were up on the elevated stage, stacking amplifiers, assembling a giant drum kit and making sound checks with the mikes. A gorgeous young woman in a black lycra skirt, high heels, a T-shirt with the club's name and logo on it, and moussed and silver-streaked blond hair approached them.

"Excuse me, sir, we won't be open for another.. oh, it's you Mr. Savino."

"Is. the boss in?" Savino said.

"Yes, sir, Mr. Manelli's upstairs."

They went up a carpeted flight of steps, past a massive bouncer whose biceps strained the seams of his pink silk tiger print shirt. The bouncer greeted Savino politely, calling him sir. It was clear that while Drakov wasn't known here, Savino was definitely part of the hierarchy.

Upstairs at n Paradiso was where the “in group" congregated. A second bar catered to the celebrities and the beautiful people, who descended to the dance floor now and then to give a thrill to the rabble down below. The private upstairs lounge extended over the tables down below, ending in a railed balcony that overlooked the dance floor and provided an unrestricted view of the stage. Manelli was seated at a table in the corner, surrounded by his entourage, heatedly discussing something with two men sitting across from him. He looked up as they approached and excused himself, striding quickly across the room to meet them.

"What the hell is going on, Savino?" he said. “l had a meeting and I couldn't even get into my own office, for Christ's sake! There's some kinda weird lock on the door-"

“I told you we'd be using the office for a few days," Savinosaid, calmly. " "You didn't tell me you were going to change the lock! Hell, you changed the whole goddamn door! I try to take a meeting in my own damn office and can’t even get the door open! It made me look like a goddamn Idiot."

"I told you we were going to use your office until further notice," said Savino.

"Yeah, but you weren't here and what am I supposed to say to people when I can't conduct business in my own damn office? How do you think: that makes me look?"

"I don't give a damn how it makes you look," Savino said. "You tell them the office is being repainted or something. I don't care what the hell you ten them, Domenic, but I don't want to hear you questioning my instructions again, is that understood?"

They spoke in low voices and to anyone watching them, it would have appeared as if" Savino were a subordinate being dressed down by Manelli, instead of the other way around.

"You're pushing me, Savino," said Manelli, tensely. "You're pushing me real hard.

I don't like being pushed. And I don't like not knowing what my club is being used' for. " He gave Drakov a long, appraising look. "I go to great pains to keep my other business separate from the club, Drakov. There's a reason for that. I like to keep a low profile and we're very visible here. Now my people tell me you've had several sealed crates delivered to my office and stored there. I want to know what's in them."

"Lilliputians," Drakov said.

"What?"

"Lilliputians. They're miniature people, about six inches. tall. I'm using the crates as troop transports."

Manelli stared at him long and hard, the muscles in his jaw twitching. "All right, if that's the way you want to play it, have it your way."

He glanced from Savino to Drakov and pointed his index finger at them. "The club's about to open and I don't want any difficulties tonight, but I want you and whatever's in those crates out of here first thing in the morning, you understand?

And I want that cockamamie hi-tech lock off my goddamn door. You got til noon.

And that's more slack than you deserve. At one second after twelve, I'm going to have my boys bust down that door and crack open those crates. And if what's in there is what I think is in there, the Network's going to find out that the cost of doing business just went up. Way up. Kapish?"

He turned and went back to his table without waiting for a reply. Savino took a deep breath.

"He thinks we're dealing arms," he said. "Manelli always was a pain in the ass to keep under control. He's going to be trouble. And trouble is something I don't need right now."

"Relax," said Drakov, walking up to Manelli's office door and pressing his palm against the flat metal plate. The lock clicked open. "After tonight, it will be finished. And what you do about Manelli will be entirely up to you."

He entered the office and Savino shoved Andre in after him. The two large wooden crates stood open on the floor. They were empty. Manelli's desk and chairs had been moved back against the wall and in the center of the floor, glowing faintly, was an activated chronoplate.