"Daddy?"

The voice seemed like an hallucination. How? How was this possible?

"Jen."

"Oh thank god, you're alive. I mean, I got your phone, but she couldn't find you, and I've been calling for days."

She. So much meaning was packed into that little word. But could it really be used to describe a handheld device made of black and yellow plastics? There was an incongruity there that struck Rook almost as strongly as the sense of insanity that had enveloped him since this whole damned case exploded in the night along with his house and his life.

But, once again, he was grateful to whatever whim had made him choose the little Supa Nokia. That had been one of the best purchases of his whole damned life.

"I know, I know, I've been, uh...."

What could you say, tied up?

"Your phone says you've been arrested or something."

"Yeah, more like something."

"Where are you?"

"I don't know. A building somewhere, probably in New York."

"How can they do this to you? You're a cop."

"That doesn't matter to them."

"I called the station."

"Kingston?"

"Yes. They said you were dead."

That must have been a convenient solution for Lisa Artoli.

"They got that wrong."

Jenny's voice sounded wrung out to the edge by tension.

"They said your house got blown up by terrorists."

"Something like that."

"I don't understand this, daddy."

"You and me, both."

Except that he did, sort of. He was a cog caught up in the machinery of a coup d'etat, purely by circumstance.

"Why are they doing this to you?"

"They think I know something. But I don't."

Well, not really, not really....

"Are they," she broke down and sobbed. "Going to kill you?"

"I don't know, baby. Right now they've done everything else."

"What? What are you saying?"

"Just that anything's possible, okay? Lissen, Jen," his mouth was drying out again. "I may not get out of here. Just remember that I love you and that I tried..."

"Daddy," her voice had risen to a shriek.

"Jen, I'm here."

"Oh god, I can't believe this."

Believe, he wanted to say, but didn't.

"Jen. I think they're coming back," he dropped his voice to a whisper, there was a sound at the door somewhere behind his head. "I gotta go. I'll call if I can."

"Daddy?"

"Terminate the call," he said, hoping the Nokia would pick up on what was going down. Last thing he wanted was for these bastards to trace this call back to Jenny. Then they'd hunt her down.

The call clicked off.

"Thank you," he murmured. Smart little phones probably didn't go to heaven when they were finally deactivated, which was a pity probably, but there you were, life was unfair, even electronic life, such as it was.

They were back, except that Gaines wasn't there. Now it was just Mr Friendly and some kid he hadn't seen before.

"Just freeze him up?"

"Yeah, we gotta move him."

"'kay, one second."

Rook heard keys being tapped on a little keyboard somewhere nearby.

"Had enough fun with him here, eh?" said the kid in a cheerful tone. He might have been describing a laboratory rat.

"Shut the fuck up." Mr. Friendly wasn't so friendly anymore.

"Okay, okay."

Rook's mind went blank, just like that.

And came back with a click sometime later, somewhere else. A faint scent of a sweet, floral perfume was the first thing he absorbed.

"There, he's awake," said a woman's voice.

"Good," Rook immediately picked up on that southern accent again. He knew that voice.

He opened his eyes. He was sitting up, sort of, in an office chair. Which made sense because this room was an office, an imposing one for an important person. There was a desk several miles long made of blonde, polished wood. A few papers sat on one end and there was an antique computer console, something from the twenties or even earlier. Behind the desk, on the wall were bookshelves, with actual books on them, lots of them. Framed paintings, or prints hung on the wall, one of them featured a tall masted sailing ship, sails filled by the wind, with a flag consisting of a ring of white stars in a blue corner with two fat bars, one red, one white over the rest.

And he had his own clothes on again. And shoes, and that was a change from the hospital gowns he'd had on for however long he'd been in here. Just for a moment he wondered about that. Why had they put his clothes back on him?

And there was a window, and fitful light was streaming in from a sky mottled with dark, fast moving clouds. Rook stopped thinking about his clothes and estimated that he was on the tenth or twelfth floor of this building, and the view was out onto a forest of glass and steel towers. Nothing he recognized, and so he was sure he was somewhere in midtown Manhattan.

Rook felt a little numb, but alive. That was good. He could move his fingers and toes, in fact he could move everything. Great, he hadn't been in control of his own body in a long time, maybe weeks. Except that he felt suddenly weak and dizzy. The room swam before his eyes, everything wobbled and he felt a wave of nausea. He shut his eyes and after a minute or so the sensations ebbed away, leaving him with cold sweat on his temples and under his arms. He opened his eyes again.

And sitting there behind the desk was God, right down to the big pink ears and pale blue eyes. God was wearing a dark grey suit today, a white shirt with a red tie. Sitting nearby, on Rook's side of the desk was his old friend Dr. Lisa Berryman, with a little portable keyboard in her lap.

"He's awake," said God.

"Yes, sir, but he's completely under our control. I can even move his limbs from this keyboard.

"Excellent. Your work has tremendous implications for the future, I think."

"Yes, sir."

"However, the technology has its limitations, does it not, Mr. Venner?"

Rook stared at the man, aware only of a boiling rage in his head.

The man turned back to Dr Berryman. "Can he speak?"

"Unh, yes, he has full motor control right now."

"Good, so tell me, Venner, why wouldn't you cooperate with us? Why be so hard nosed about telling us what we need to know?"

Rook tried to speak, but once again his mouth was so dry that nothing came out except sputters.

"I think he needs a drink," said Dr. Berryman.

"Well, give him one, then."

There was a wait while Berryman left the room and returned with a cup full of water. She spilled some of it down his neck, but got a little into his mouth, and with the water he was able to do more than croak.

"Wha, gi, you right..." at first it wasn't intelligible. He coughed. More water was applied to his lips. There were some really weird ironies here, with Lisa Berryman cradling his head while she poured little slurps of water into his mouth. He caught her scent, saw the swelling curve of her breast under the suit jacket, the curl of her hair. This woman had developed a technology that allowed for complete control of a human being through a computer interface. She was completely aware of the fact that her invention was being used to torture at least one human being. She had to know that it would soon become a favorite tool for the thugs who ran torture dungeons. And yet she was still a woman, maybe a mother, and a symbol of the hope for the future that runs through the heart of the human race.

Nasty and nurture in one sweet package.

"'Kay, 'nuff," Rook raised an arm and pushed her away. It was great to be able to move his arms. It seemed like it had been an age since he'd been able to do that.

"What," he swallowed. He was so angry, it was hard to think straight. "What gives you the right to kill people? Blow up people's homes? Torture police officers?"

Rook choked off the rest, too enraged to go on.

The man behind the desk remained calm, relaxed, even came up with a smile, albeit a grim one.

"Since you ask, I'll tell you. No one gave us the right. We aren't the kind of people who ask permission to do what we need to do. We take what we have to have. We are the true Americans, not the passive slaves of the system. We're going to restore liberty in this country and rescue it from the grip of those who have ruled it for so long."

"True Americans? That's a crock of shit."

God's big pink ears quivered just a little.

"How so, Venner?" There was that dangerous purr, just like God.

"True Americans don't run torture dungeons. They don't kill people without legal authority and damned, good cause. They don't blow up people's homes in the middle of the night in an attempt to suppress a case!"

There, he'd said it. But hey, they were going to kill him anyway.

The southern accent guy had an angry glint in the eyes now.

"Actually, Venner, we have good reasons for what we do. You see, Venner, you are unaware of the true history of the past fifty years. In fact, I doubt you studied history much at all. "

"Had it in school."

"I know, but in reality all you had was, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abe Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Ronald Reagan and out. That's all they let you have. You know nothing, because it was decided some time ago that ordinary Americans were better off knowing nothing about their situation. It made them easier to control."

Rook struggled to respond with anything other than anger. "So, we don't know much. How does that help the country?"

"Well, it depends what you mean by country. You see, this great land was always conceived of as a republic, not some communistic democracy. The original premise was always that a ruling class would rule, although there would be occasions when the rest of the people would be allowed to vote for a different ruler. Just to keep things from getting locked down and stifled like some old world country."

God was settling into this little speech. He had his fingers together and was leaning back and looking out the window.

"But, you understand, the ruling class had no intention of ever relinquishing power. Don't look so shocked, this is the way the world is. It's necessary for stability and it has worked very well. Our country was prosperous for a long time."

"Bullshit, we had democracy. It says "We the people," doesn't it?"

"It did. High flown rhetoric that looks good inscribed on the outside of public buildings. But in reality this country belongs to the decent people of good standing and property. We've always been a small percentage of the population, but the sacred rights of private property are the true bulwark of liberty. Don't you believe in liberty, Venner?"

"Democracy."

"A slogan, Venner, nothing more. The great lumpen mass of ordinaries are incapable of judgement. They own very little and thus have no real stake in the country. How can they be allowed to rule?"

"Every man born equal."

"More rhetoric suitable for the little mottos that are tacked onto those framed seals of office that goddamned bureaucrats like to put up, but impractical. And in effect, not true. Some people have always been more equal than others."

Rook thought he'd heard that phrase somewhere, like it was important or something, but he couldn't place it.

"Not my country," Rook did his best to sound defiant.

"No, not your country," agreed the gent with the long ears and pink cheeks. "But then there are many countries within this one land. And they are all owned and operated by a small percentage of the population. That's just the way of the world, Venner. "

"We pay taxes."

"Well of course, you wouldn't want to be a complete burden on the state, would you?"

"And your people, they do what? Other than murder?"

"We rule, Venner, we are the ruling class."

Rook stared at this man and felt a chill run through him. The man exuded this air of confidence, or smugness, perhaps. How could you deny the truth of what he said. Everything Rook had beem taught was just a lie. The country belonged to these people and it always had. Everything was pre-sorted, the cards were pre-arranged, and these people controlled the processes. What chance had anyone as lowly as an SIO of a regional PD of breaking all that crap up?

"I know,it's a shock to hear that phrase. We're not supposed to ever say it. But it's the truth. I'm afraid the rulers of this land are just hypocrites, as well as snobs, but in mitigation I'd say that those qualities come with the territory, always have."

The man chuckled, the ears wobbled.

"You see, Venner, Marions have been wealthy since about the time of the American Revolution. Back then we weren't Americans, we were English and we had a plantation on the island of Barbados, where we grew sugar. Correction, our slaves grew the sugar. We bought the slaves, and the land and we forced them to do the hard work that made us rich. So, we made money in the time honored way of the human species. Because we were brutal and greedy enough not to give a shit about those slaves, most of whom died and were buried beside the fields they'd worked in. We made money, and then for a variety of reasons, we moved to South Carolina, where we made a lot more money selling slaves. Then some of us moved out to Texas, bought land and raised cattle. We killed people who got in our way. Wiped out a whole family one time. It was known as the Franklin Massacre for about fifty years. There were newspaper campaigns against us, politicians even denounced us. Then, you know what happened?"

Rook said nothing.

"It was forgotten. Nobody knows about it now. The damned Franklins are just lost in the maze of history. See, that's what's inevitable about human affairs. History is written by the winners. Everyone forgets the losers."

"You're saying this is right?"

"No, just inevitable. The Marion family have had their ups and downs, but since we forced our way in, we have been within the ruling elite of this country. And therefore by extension, of the world. Now, I can't claim that it's all been plain sailing. We've had a few crises along the way. The War of Northern Aggression ruined South Carolina for us. But the Texas branch did well enough and we regrouped out there. There was some arrogance back then after we got so terribly rich on the cattle business. And we got into oil. We had some speculators, some boys playing the stock market like it was a game, and yes, most of that money vanished in 1929, in fact we barely kept the ranch."

"The ranch?"

"Sable Ranch, Venner, it's a real place. Been a working cattle ranch for a hundred and thirty years. We almost lost it thanks to my great uncle Benjamin's foolishness, but we didn't. And we made it through the depression, and then we recovered, and though we were never quite as rich again, the family did well from the 1950s on. And eventually we had us a President. You might know the name, Neil Marion, who won it fair and square, in the Supreme Court."

The man grinned wolfishly across the desk, amused by his own conceit.

Rook didn't understand the allusion, but his curiosity was aroused.

"Who are you then?"

"Buck Marion's the name, son. I'm from the true line of the family, going all the way back to Andrew Marion himself, who landed at Savannah in 1809 with a good coffle of slaves and never looked back."

Links were forming in Rook's brain. This whole business was some kind of war within the Marion family it seemed.

"A coffle?"

"That was the term for a shipload of slaves. And old Andrew sold them at a great profit and established himself in the business in South Carolina."

"The slave business?"

"Of course, it was the foundation of the first great American fortunes. Cotton had to be grown, labor was needed, white men would not work hard enough in the southern climate, for low pay. The frontier was always there, you see, beckoning them to try their luck, to find their own patch. And while the joyless puritans up in New England agitated against slavery, they were happy to buy the cotton they ran up in their mills from southern plantations. Hypocrisy, you see, Venner, comes with the territory."

Rook remembered something about this topic from school, but not enough to enable him to mount a challenge to any of this. The white haired gent sighed, as if he regretted the passing of the age of slavery.

"Later, well, Andrew's sons moved west, started again in Texas. One of them, my ancestor bought the first parcels of what became the ranch."

"Sable Ranch?"

"Pretty much. It was bigger back then. We sold some of the land later."

"Let me get this right. You're a Marion, and Freddy was a Marion, and Sable Ranch is, like, Marion, so is this whole case just something to do with a war inside your family?"

Buck Marion smiled again, not unkindly. "You have a point, Venner. A policeman's instincts at work, I would say. But, really, it is about something much more important. The old witch down there at the Ranch isn't a real Marion, she's just Neil's wife. Something else entirely, you see, and what she represents is something that's entirely unamerican. She's cut off the country's balls, boy! She's put us in the deep freeze. The rest of the world has passed us by, and we've been stuck in a kind of loop, where time goes by without anything changing. That's the way she wants it, you see."

"Why does she want that?"

"Oh, another good question. I would say she was psychologically damaged by the assassination of her husband. And then the subsequent events that lead to the emergency. She had to outwit a lot of good men, and you know what? She did, and she buried most of 'em. But then she wanted everything frozen in place. She brought in her thugs, like your General Sangacha, and she whipped this country into a cage and she's kept it there ever since."

"Sangacha was hers?"

"That woman replaced the entire upper tier of the Officer Corps. She may not be a Marion-by-birth, but she sure knows how to run a coup d'etat. Have to hand it to her on that score."

"What did Sangacha do for her?"

Bucky's smile turned sharklike. "He killed people, fool. What else would she use a monster like that for? He was a Camp Commander during the early stages of the Emergency. Northern Tier States, where they sent the liberals. He hit his targets, buried his prisoners by the thousands, gained a rep as someone who took care of difficult jobs. That's when she picked him, elevated him and started using him to clear up the trail."

"The trail?"

"Yeah, all the bloody footprints she'd been forced to leave behind. He was sent in with his teams of killers to find anyone who knew anything about what she'd done and terminate them."

"So someone killed him for revenge? After all this time?"

Bucky smiled again, more sharklike than ever.

"No. To send her a message. To rattle her, make her nervous, and when she's nervous she makes mistakes."

"Nervous," Rook was still sorting all this out in his mind.

"And now, we want to send her another message. Which is why we need the little pleasure model."

"But she doesn't know anything. She wasn't even there when he was killed. She was locked up in a cage in the basement."

"Of course, it's not like that, Venner. She knows something without knowing it, if you see what I mean. It's just a scrap of data, a code prefix, perhaps, a location. And when we get that and send it to the old bitch at the Ranch, she's gonna have a goddamned fit."

"But we don't know where she is."

Bucky turned a face full of mock sorrow towards Rook.

"Yes, pity that. Problem for you, you see. Because you're kind of surplus goods now, Venner. Just a detail that we have to clean up."

Rook felt the chill coming off the man. His own anger still burned, but the chill was getting to him. So this was it, now they were going to kill him.

"So, now you get your goons in to kill me?"

Bucky's smile got even bigger. He opened a drawer in the desk and removed Venner's badge and a pistol. Rook felt an itch in his right hand when he saw the gun.

"Not at all, Venner. We don't have to resort to such crude methods."

Bucky came around the desk with the gun in one hand and the badge in the other.

"Okay, let's see how this goes."

And Doctor Berryman clicked her little keyboard and just like that Rook lost control of his limbs. And with the loss of control came the understanding of what they planned to do.

He would've cursed them, but he couldn't speak. He could only watch as Bucky came across to where he sat and pressed his badge into his left hand. His hand gripped the badge, pulled it in close against his body. Bucky placed the gun in his right hand. More keys spattered away under Doctor Berryman's nimble fingers.

He raised the gun, turned it towards himself.

"Amazing," said Bucky.

Rook felt the world sliding away from him. He opened his mouth. To be more accurate, Dr. Berryman opened his mouth for him.

"Yes, perfect," said Bucky. "He eats the gun in despair. But hold on a moment, let's put this cushion behind his head, to keep the mess to a minimum."

Bucky had a big, square wheat colored cushion in his hand. Rook felt it being propped up in place behind his head. Bucky paused to examine his handiwork. There was no pity in those blue eyes, just a fascination, as if he were watching an insect under glass.

"Good, go ahead."

Rook struggled to stop it, to take back control, to avoid this wretched, miserable fate. Being forced to eat his own gun and blow his own brains out.

"This is just, astonishing," said Bucky, who was leaning back now, sitting on the edge of his desk..

Rook raised the gun to his face, then slid it into his mouth. He could taste the oil. He closed his eyes. What a horrible way to go. I'm sorry Jen, so sorry....

Another second passed. His finger was on the trigger, all it needed was a final squeeze, but it didn't come.

"What is it?" said Bucky.

"I don't know, some kind of interference," said Doctor Berryman. "Don't understand this."

There was an odd little "split--spak--squeak" sound in Rook's ear, like a microphone had been unplugged. And then a cool scandinavian voice spoke in his head.

"You have perhaps two seconds. Shoot them now."

He felt his eyes go wide, his jaw drop in astonishment. It was true. He had control of his own body back. He yanked the gun out of his mouth and shot Dr Berryman, the gun was loud in the room. She shrieked and fell off her chair and flailed about on the floor.

Buck Marion reacted quickly, spinning away from Rook, going for the drawer in his desk again and coming up with another gun. Rook steadied his right arm with his left hand and shot Marion mid-torso, knocking him back against his chair and down to the floor.

Rook hauled himself up onto his feet. He felt weak and dizzy again and had to stop there for a moment until the nausea passed.

"I am in the drawer here," said the cool scandinavian voice in his ear.

"Yeah, right." Rook made his way around the desk, looked in the open drawer and saw the little hunk of yellow plastic. He grabbed it and shoved it into his pocket.

Marion was down, but not dead. Rook's bullet had hit him somewhere under the ribcage, right side, he'd live if they got him to an ER in time. Rook took the man's gun, checked the slide and the clip, full, good. Then he walked over to where Dr. Lisa Berryman was still writhing on the floor. Rook stomped on the little keyboard, enjoyed the satisfying crunch as it disintegrated into fragments.

Unfortunately, it brought back the nausea. He felt so weak suddenly that he almost blacked out. He spun around then leaned on the big desk. Everything was spinning and he felt horribly sick. He vomited, there was nothing in his stomach except a little water, but that he brought up onto Marion's polished desk top. When the spasm had passed he clung there, shaking, holding on for dear life. Slowly, slowly, the nausea passed and he was able to push away from the desk. There wasn't much time, he knew. Someone would investigate pretty soon. Of course they'd been expecting a gunshot, but probably not two.

Berryman was trying to get up onto her knees. There was a big patch of blood between her shoulders. She made a valiant effort, but ultimately she lacked the strength and as he watched she collapsed, face down on the floor. Good, he didn't want to shoot her again. He stepped around her, steadied himself on a bookcase, his head was swimming, he struggled to think clearly. He stuffed Marion's gun into his side holster. Full clip there, good backup, but he preferred his own sidearm in his hands right now. A quick check showed him that they'd put everything back on him, for realism, he presumed. He guessed they'd planned on dumping him in an alley somewhere. An easy story to pass along. A desperate man, wanted for various crimes, a rogue cop perhaps, who'd killed himself in an alley at the end of his tether. It would be so easy for the NYPD to close out the case, before they even investigated it. And somehow or other that would have suited Marion and his friends in their struggle against Sable Ranch.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out the Nokia. "That was, uh, well..."

"Just in time," said the Nokia in his ear. "Explanation. It was impossible to break in earlier. Doctor Berryman kept a locking key depressed most of the time, while she operated that program. But she released it, in order to enter a code command that would make you pull the trigger. Then I could disrupt her control."

"Am I chipped?"

"I don't know. I think this program didn't require that. You may observe after effects, though."

"Any ideas?"

"No. This is new to me."

"Well, bless your persistent, little electronic heart," he muttered, putting the Nokia back into his pocket. The after effects were something he wasn't going to worry about it, just yet.

He surveyed the room, looked through his pockets, found his wallet. Someone had lifted his cash, at least two hundred new bucks. Pity, he'd be needing that. If he could get out of this building alive.

He went back to Buck Marion, bent down and rifled through the man's pockets. Marion moaned, there was a lot of blood lower down. Rook came up with a wallet, looked through that and found a thick wad of new dollars.

"Think I'll be needing this more than you." He took it, flicked through the rest of the contents, there were some identity cards, and a Foreign Exchange Cash card, which signalled that Mr. Marion travelled outside the country and sometimes needed to get cash. Then there was another card, rimmed in gold, with black lettering raised on the white plastic-- Military Districts General Access-- and an ID-- Charles Broughman, and a number, 01328765-S-444-B6.

"And what do we have here?" He turned it over in his hand. The back side was blank. An ID card, under another name, with no photo-image. Interesting. Rook took that as well, then slid the wallet back into Marion's pocket.

Standing up brought on another wave of dizziness and nausea. His legs felt as if he'd just finished a marathon or something. Again he leaned over the desk and waited for it to pass. When it was done he pulled himself upright and reached for the Nokia.

"You have any idea where this is?"

"The nearest phone exchange is the Lexington Midtown 6 Substation. That puts us within three blocks of Lexington Ave and 50th Street. "

"That's good to know. " Rook peered through the window, rain was pouring down now, walls of dark brick and black glass soared up into the sky. They were on something like the ninth or tenth floor and he was looking out the back of the building Office towers all around blocked out the sky. He looked down and observed a trash tube that extended from a window over to his right and ran down to a large dumpster below. It seemed to be about halfway down from where he stood.

Rook studied it for a moment. Ground floor would bristle with security. That tube offered a way around that obstacle. Might be a little difficult to manage in his current state of health, however. But the ground floor might not be doable.

And then once he was outside?

A plan had formed in his mind, in truth it was the only thing he could think of. Whether it would work or not was another matter, but he'd made a decision, it seemed, without ever really thinking it through.

He examined the trash tube again. It was a big one. There was a major bit of construction taking place down on that floor. Were they working today? At this distance it was impossible to say.

Okay, two guns, one full clip, one probably two thirds full. Not too bad. It was time to get out of the room. That no one had thought to investigate after the two gunshots told him that anyone listening had been told to expect at least one. Probably they were waiting to be called on, not wanting to investigate too soon and earn the wrath of Mr. Marion.

Speaking of which, Marion groaned again, softly, but in deep pain.

Rook had no sympathy. He stepped past Berryman, who seemed to be still breathing, and stood by the door listening. Then gun in hand he turned the doorknob and pulled it open.

Outside was a corridor with a thick grey carpet. The walls and ceiling were in neutral pale blue. There would be elevators, perhaps more than one set of them. He listened, heard nothing, then pushed out onto the grey carpet. Which way to go? Did it matter? He went to the right, came to a T junction and found a bank of elevators, just as a light flashed there announcing the arrival of one.

Hiding was better than confrontation, he was certain. There was a door right there, beside the elevators offering "Fire Escape."

Sounded about right, so he went through that and waited, back to the wall, and feeling distinctly dizzy again and weak in the legs. He hoped he didn't just collapse.

People left the elevator, he heard voices, and one, a man, said distinctly,

"We haven't heard anything, we better check.":

Rook went down the stairs as fast as he could while being quiet about it. There were bound to be minicams in here, but was anyone watching them? Probably only when an alarm was triggered.

After two floors he had to stop and lean against the wall again. Nausea and dizziness threatened to take him down. It lasted about a minute and then faded away, leaving him with cold sweat congealing on his body,

So far so good.

He'd reached the fifth floor when he heard a door bang open loudly above him. Then he heard Gaines, he'd know that man's voice anytime, anywhere, say "He was here, I got a reading."

So they had a molecule sniffer and they'd picked up his scent. Feet were thumping down the stairs.

He hurried himself, got to the fourth floor and tried the door. Locked.

Damn! That was one thing he hadn't counted on. For a moment he thought about the possibilities. Then he heard voices below, probably on the ground floor. He spun on his heel climbed the stairs two at a time back to the fifth floor and went through that door.

This floor was all pale greens, from the carpeting to the ceiling. He'd just absorbed that information, when the nausea hit him. He bent over and vomited, just dry heaves, since there was absolutely nothing in his stomach. Then his legs buckled and he went down on his knees. The heaves kept coming. Climbing those stairs that fast had not been a good move. But if anyone came through the door behind him he'd be pretty much helpless. He had to move, had to get somewhere out of sight, and sound. But the corridor offered nothing except blonde wood doors to offices, and he could only be certain of one thing if he stumbled through one of those, setting off alarms and bringing the killers down on him in no time.

He pulled himself to his feet and found himself right by the elevators. Maybe, just maybe, he thought and pressed the button, while keeping the gun down by his side, ready if necessary.

There was an agonising wait. Seconds crawled by. At any moment the pursuit might come through the fire escape door.

And then an elevator arrived, going down, and empty.

He got on, pressed the button for the fourth floor and leaned against the wall while the cold sweat congealed on him again. The weirdest thing was that when the nausea passed, and the dizziness was gone too, then the hunger came on. He felt as if he hadn't eaten in a week, which, he reflected, he probably hadn't. They must've kept him going with intravenous feeding.

The elevator doors opened. The fourth floor was all wrapped in plastic and full of dust. Cargo buckets stood close by, some of them loaded with broken sheet rock. Nobody was in view, but somewhere down the corridor he heard hammering. So they were working in here.

Where was that waste tube?

He pulled himself together and moved down the corridor, toward the hammering sounds. Gaines and company would have met in the stairwell by now. Gaines would be trying the elevators, and a quick read of the elevator movements would reveal a stop here on the fourth floor. He didn't have long.

Up ahead, plastic flaps suddenly moved aside and with a cloud of surrounding dust, a machine appeared, pulling a dumpster loaded up with debris. The machine paused, then with a smooth sounding whirr of an electric engine it turned and headed away from him, down the corridor.

He followed it, glancing to his right, through the dustcloud and the plastic flaps. There were guys in there, clad head to toe in yellow protective stuff, tearing the walls down. None of them looked his way.

Farther on the walls were mostly gone, even the ceilings were down. They were taking this floor back to the concrete.

He stayed close to the machine, followed it to a line of other dumpsters. In front of the dumpsters the exterior wall of the building had been opened up, a slab of some kind of plastic, scarred and dirty placed in the gap, and in its center was a round hole, ominously dark from this distance.

The machine parked the dumpster at the end of the line, then rolled down to the other end. There it extended a pair of hooks into the dumpster closest to the hole, raised it and tilted it into the opening, sending a shower of smashed sheet rock, ceiling panels, foam insulation and dust tumbling down the waste tube.

Rook took a quick count, the machine had five more dumpsters to go. If he was really going to take the waste tube route himself, he didn't want to be climbing down inside it while the machine was emptying dumpsters.

He glanced back along the floor and his heart sank. The elevator had just arrived and disgorged three men.

Rook hid behind the last dumpster in the line, and peered around the rough metal edge. One of the men went into the room where the guys in yellow suits were working. Another had turned in the opposite direction and gone down to the part of the floor that had yet to be attacked by the yellow suited mob.

The third figure stalked down the floor, straight towards the row of dumpsters.

With a throaty whirr the dumpster machine lifted the next dumpster and emptied it into the gaping hole.

Rook had to move. Unfortunately there was nowhere to go. He peered around the edge of the dumpster again. The third figure had stopped and was investigating a room on the other side of the corridor that had been partially stripped out.

Rook stepped away from the dumpsters, past the dumpster emptying machine and crouched down behind a mound of broken foam insulation that was at least four feet high and ten long.

He waited, trying to think of a way to get back down the length of the cleared out space to the elevators. What had seemed like a way out of the building had turned into a trap. There was a rattle and a crash nearby as the machine dropped another dumpster back onto the floor.

Where was the third man? Could it be Gaines? That was a scary thought. Gaines was terrifying. There was something savage and insane about that man.

When Rook thought of the torture he'd suffered at Gaines's hands, his finger tightened involuntarily on the trigger.

Rook took another peek around the corner. The machine was emptying the last in the line of dumpsters. There was dust pouring out the door of the room where the guys in orange were working, along with a renewed roar of sawzalls and a power hammer. Still no sign of that third figure, who might well have been Gaines. Nor were the other two visible, either.

Weird, Rook was just wondering if they'd given up on this floor and gone back to the elevators when the first blow struck him across the back of the head and neck. Rook went straight over into the pile of foam, it felt like he'd been hit with a hammer, like his skull might be broken. Stars pinwheeled through his vision, his head rang, he was down on his hands and knees, stuck in foam.

Someone kicked him in the side, lifting him off the floor, knocking him right through the pile of foam. The air had exploded out of his lungs, he gasped, struggled, raised his hand with the gun in it, but something flashed momentarily in the air and his fingers were on fire with pain, and the gun was gone, spinning away.

Gaines leaned over him, a horrible grin on his face, a gleaming black truncheon in his hand.

"Got you now, haven't I?"

Rook felt a tiny seep of air come back into his lungs. He was so frightened he didn't even feel the pain in his ribs, which was considerable.

Then he forgot about everything as Gaines drove the truncheon end first into his chest, then leaned on it, driving it down harder and harder. Gaines was laughing with a wild glee.

"This is a great way to kill someone. Did you know that?"

The truncheon was digging into his chest, depressing his rib cage, something was going to break soon, Rook gasped, choked, flailed, he had a hand on the truncheon, but he couldn't budge it.

His other hand caught on something stuck in his belt. For a split second he didn't understand and then his hand wrapped around Buck Marion's pistol.

"Best of all," said Gaines happily, "there's no one around to tell me when to stop."

The fucking gun was stuck in his belt. The truncheon was gonna break his ribs, he was on the point of blacking out from lack of air.

"Man, this is so much fun." Casually, Gaines spat in his face.

Wet spit, that evil smile on this fucker's face. From somewhere Rook found the strength and just tore the gun free. Something ripped down there, maybe his pants. Who cared? His thumb stroked the safety even as his finger squeezed the trigger.

The gunshot was real loud and Gaines bounced away from him with a little shriek, his face stark with complete shocked surprise.

Then it contorted into hate.

"You fuck!"

Rook sucked in a real breath of air. It was good not to have that damned truncheon driving a hole into his chest. He pulled the gun up. Gaines wasn't going down, not yet. He had one hand holding his belly, the other had that truncheon.

Rook shot him again, and this time the bullet spun Gaines around and crumpled him onto the floor.

Rook was pulling himself to his feet. The others would be coming soon. He had to get out.

And there was only one way available.

Every step was painful, either from his ribs or from his chest. He stepped past Gaines, who lying in a pool of blood. His foot struck something hard. He looked down and saw his own gun. He picked it up and kept moving.

The dumpster machine was pushing a train of dumpsters down the hall. He saw two men at the far end, had they heard the gunshots over the sound of hammers and sawzalls? They seemed to be looking in his direction.

Didn't matter. He got one leg up into the hole for the waste chute, then the other one.

Time to go.

He launched himself, and fell feet first down the chute.