"Damn it!" Harris hunched down, mashed the accelerator, jerked the car to the left.
There was a roar from the other car, like the world's loudest lawn mower starting, and Harris felt hail batter the side of the Hutchen. He flinched and ducked as low as he could. The shuddering went on and on.
He felt hot stings in his back and neck. It couldn't be gunfire—that would hurt worse, stop him, wouldn't it?
He wheeled left at the first cross-street, automatically slid into one of the lanes to the right of the median, and realized that all the traffic he could see was headed his way. Headlights ahead swerved and horns honked. There was a moment's break in the gunfire from the other car. Then it started again, from directly behind; the back of the Hutchen shook under dozens of impacts.
Harris swore. The car pursuing him was a long, low-slung, fast-looking job like one of Doc's. He wouldn't be able to outrun it.
One of the oncoming autos roared past him in the other lane. A few hundred feet ahead, both lanes were occupied by oncoming headlights.
Harris yanked the wheel left, aiming for a gap between two trees in the median. He felt a tremendous bang as his front wheels hit the curb; the Hutchen bounced up, slowed as it plowed through a bush planted between the trees, and rocked as it came down the curb on the far side.
An oncoming car in his lane screeched as it braked; it swerved but managed to skid to a stop just feet away. Harris turned right, finally traveling with the traffic.
There was the sound of an impact behind him, followed by a metallic crunch. Harris looked in the rearview mirror—to no avail; it was shattered, pieces of glass still falling from the frame. He glanced over his shoulder.
The pursuing car straddled the median. It was motionless, pinned between the two trees Harris had cleared.
"And then you returned to the Monarch Building?" Doc persisted.
"No, I went back and got our blue jeans."
"That would seem to be a foolish choice."
"Damned right it was. But I was mad." He shrugged. "After that I did come right back. You should have seen Fergus' face when I drove in and he saw what had happened to the Hutchen."
"And what about you, Harris?" Doc peered over Harris' shoulder. "How is he, Alastair?"
Harris winced as he felt the doctor's tweezers tug at his bare back again.
"Not bad," Alastair said. "A few pieces of shrapnel that probably used to be car door. Nothing serious."
Harris glanced again at the faces around him. Doc looked thoughtful. Jean-Pierre was frowning. Gaby was worried. Noriko's expression was, as usual, serene, but Harris thought he saw tension in her pose. And Joseph, standing near the door, arms folded, looked just plain mad.
Harris' attention was drawn to a jar on the nearest laboratory table. The jar held a brain and eye-stalks floating in what looked like red jelly, and he had the sudden disconcerting feeling that the eyes were looking at him. As soon as he glanced at them, the eyes looked away. He shuddered.
"Anyway," Harris continued, "my guess is that they were just getting ready to shoot me when I accidentally sideswiped them. I figure that the impact made the first guy drop his gun. I think maybe I was saved by my bad driving."
Jean-Pierre asked, "Did you ever return fire?"
"Nope."
"Did you drive past the car once it was stopped to see what condition the gunmen were in?"
"No."
"Did you contact the Novimagos Guard?"
Harris shook his head, impatient. "That's what I'm doing now, right? What are you getting at?"
Doc interrupted: "Who knew you were going out?"
Harris thought it over. "Jean-Pierre and Joseph. And Fergus."
"And who knew you were going to Brannach's?"
"No one. No, wait. I told Jean-Pierre and Joseph."
Jean-Pierre stiffened. "What are you suggesting?"
Harris looked at him evenly. "I'm not suggesting anything, JayPee. I'm answering questions. I know you didn't have anything to do with this. If you wanted something bad to happen to me, you could have arranged for it lots of times. Stabbed me in a back stairwell or something."
Jean-Pierre slowly relaxed back into his chair. "Well, then." He turned to glare at Doc. "Stop trying to pick fights, Doc."
Alastair slathered balm on the last of Harris' cuts and affixed another bandage.
Doc ignored Jean-Pierre. He said, "The Novimagos Guard found the car. It was wedged too firmly between the trees to drive clear; you chose very well. But the gunmen were gone."
"Great." Harris glanced back over his shoulder, saw that his cuts were all bound, and shrugged back into his shirt. "Thanks, Alastair."
Doc said, "I need to make some talk-box calls. And then . . . I'd appreciate it if you would arrange to go driving again."
"Oh, yeah? And how about gunmen?"
"There will probably be even more this time, and better armed."
"Great," Harris said. "Sign me up."
Gaby glared at him. "I think that too many days of being cooped up here have made you crazy."
"Maybe it'll be an improvement from when I was sane," he shot back.
"You want what?" Fergus asked.
"I want the Hutchen again," Harris said. "I'm stubborn."
"You mean you're mad. I haven't even begun the repairs."
Harris shrugged. "If it's drivable, it's what I want."
Fergus sighed. "Give me a few beats; I have to look over my notes." He turned away from the madman, sorrowfully shook his head, and walked into the little office, closing its door behind him.
Once inside, he kept a nervous eye on the door and picked up the handset of his talk-box double. "Morcymeath five nine one naught," he told the operator.
After a minute, he heard the click of connection, but no voice spoke. Fergus said, "It's me."
The other voice was low and smooth. "What?"
"He's coming out again."
"With anyone?"
"No, alone." Fergus paused a moment. "He'll be in the same car as before. It should be even easier to spot. It's shot up all to Avlann." He waited a moment longer, but the other voice didn't speak again. Fergus replaced the handset in his cradle.
He picked up the Hutchen's key and his notebook and consulted the latter as he walked back out.
"It should carry you," he said, not looking up. "The Hutchen. But don't beat it too much about before I can repair it."
"I won't," Jean-Pierre said.
Fergus looked up, confused. Jean-Pierre stood beside Harris, both of them leaning against the wall, looking identically nonchalant.
"Oh. Both of you? Or do you want a different car, Highness?"
"In fact, we'll need the slabside lorry instead."
Fergus looked in some confusion at Harris. "I'm glad you changed your mind. I'll just get the key to the lorry."
Harris shook his head. "Not yet. Stay here. Doc will be here in a second to talk to you. He's just up in the building's switchboard office."
Fergus's stomach went cold.
He threw his notebook into Jean-Pierre's face and sprinted for the stairwell.
He was two steps from it when an impact like a sledgehammer blow hit the small of his back. He smashed into the wall beside the door, staggered backwards, and felt his head crack on the concrete floor of the garage.
Harris stood over the unconscious mechanic and searched him for weapons. Fergus carried nothing but the tools in his belt.
Jean-Pierre joined him. "I have never seen a jumping kick like that."
"Flying side kick. Best used against immobile targets and blind men. But when it connects, it tends to smart." Harris unbuckled the tool belt and pulled it free of Fergus. "Say, what's all this `Highness' stuff, anyway?"
Jean-Pierre shrugged. "By an accident of birth, I am prince and heir to the kingdom of Acadia."
"Hey. Nice work if you can get it."
The other man smiled thinly. "If I thought it was such nice work I would not be here."
Fergus felt pain in his back and heard a murmur of voices. He forced his eyes open.
Doc's face hovered above him. Fergus closed his eyes again.
He felt Doc seize him by the lapels; then he was swung through the air. His back slammed into the wall and the pain grew. He dangled in Doc's grip, his feet well off the floor, and opened his eyes again.
Doc's face was set in angry lines. Behind him waited his associates, the two grimworlders, and the huge man named Joseph. Their expressions were unforgiving.
Doc said, "Do you want to go to gaol, or do you want to walk away?"
Fergus felt a little surge of hope rise through all the fear. "Walk, please."
Doc dropped him. Fergus' heels hit the floor but his legs would not hold him up; he slid down and sat, legs drawn up, at Doc's feet.
Doc glared at him. "You have to do two things. First, tell me everything you know about the place you called to—Morcymeath five nine one naught."
"It's the number he gave me." Fergus heard his voice quavering, but he couldn't stop it. "It belongs to a man named Eamon Moon."
"Tell me about him."
"My height. Lean, like Jean-Pierre. The ladies all seem to like him and he spends a lot of money on them. He has a flat in Morcymeath."
"That's all you have?" Doc shook his head. "It's not enough. Take him to gaol."
"No, please." Fergus frantically searched his memory for things to say, presents to give Doc so that the man might think better of him. "I met him at the Tamlyn Club once. He has a regular table there. I saw him meet another man there once."
"Describe this other man."
"A strong-looking redcap, a graybeard from the old world. He has a lowland accent."
"Angus Powrie." Doc thought about it for a moment. "Very well. That's enough for us to start.
"Second." The anger he turned on Fergus made his previous attitude seem like one of affection. "Why?"
Fergus felt his breath catch. The anger he'd held down for years threatened to surface. It wouldn't do to vent it on Doc if he still had a chance to get away. But he couldn't keep the resentment out of his voice. "It's not my fault. You're to blame."
"Explain yourself."
"Ten years I've worked for the Foundation. Every year I apply to be a full associate. Every year you turn me down, keep me chained in this hole." He gestured at Jean-Pierre and the rest. "I could have been one of them, but you just wanted me to keep their cars running. I'm as good as they are. She—" he pointed at Gaby "—is here less than a week, and already you're talking about taking her on, too. What about me?" His voice cracked on the last word.
"No doubt you've told this to others. At a pub, say, after hours."
Fergus didn't answer.
"And, no doubt, one day you found a friend in Goodsir Moon. He bought you drinks and told you, yes, you are as good as they are, but they hate you and laugh at you."
Fergus felt a flicker of confusion. That was exactly what had happened. "Maybe."
"They don't deserve you, Fergus." Doc's tone was harsh. "You know, you could do your family a lot of good with just a few more coins every moon."
The mechanic didn't answer. His anger was gone, replaced by a cold sickness. If he concentrated hard, maybe he could keep from throwing up on Doc's boots.
Doc stared down at him a long moment. "Alastair, take him to Galt Athelstane at the guard station. Tell them to hold him until his words prove true. Or forever, if they do not."
The next evening, Harris and Doc walked into the Tamlyn Club with the confidence of the wealthy dilettantes they saw all around them. "Goodsir Cremm's table," Doc said, and the maître d' led them across the crowded floor.
The club was huge, a vast expanse of tables dressed in gold tablecloths and decorated with fresh flowers, white china, and gleaming silverware.
Green-jacketed waiters served brightly hued patrons. On stage, Addison Trow and his New Castilians, in matching white jackets and blood-red pants, played for the dining audience. Their sound was like big band played entirely on strings and woodwinds. Harris decided that he liked it.
The maître d' brought them to the table where Alastair sat. The doctor glanced up at them, looked away, and did a classic double-take, breaking into a wide grin. He waited for the maître d' to leave. "I didn't recognize you two."
"That's the idea, isn't it?" asked Harris. He and Doc sat.
Doc's skin was the color of a deep California tan, just slightly lighter than the suit he wore, and his short-cropped blond hair matched his tie. Harris was as dark as old wood and he knew the Van Dyke beard and mustache he wore dramatically altered the lines of his face.
"Where did you get all that?"
"Doc showed me to Siobhan Damvert's old makeup kit. The makeups were mostly too old and dried up, so I sent out for more, but the hairpieces were mostly in working order." Harris gingerly touched his beard; the spirit gum was holding fine.
"Harris has a fine hand for this sort of work," Doc said.
"He does," Alastair said. "Very well. If you'll try not to be too indiscreet about it and take a look at the tables nearest the stage . . . The small round one with only one man at it. That's Eamon Moon."
Harris turned as if to watch the band and spotted the man Alastair described. Moon was a lean, handsome man with a pencil-thin mustache and a sophisticated look. He sipped from a wineglass while smiling at the musicians.
Alastair continued. "He's been here most of the afternoon. Sitting alone, but occasionally people come up to talk to him. It looks like social contacts for the most part, and I've recognized a couple of royal ministers and one captain of the guard among those he's spoken to. Others have the look of strong-arm men about them. They don't stay long after he speaks to them."
"Noriko and Jean-Pierre went through his flat," Doc said. "It seems barely lived in. The talk-box was attached to an interesting device. A wireless transmitter made for cabled doubles to plug into. I think it must send his calls on to another site."
"Not here. I've seen him take no calls."
"Go home and get some rest."
Alastair nodded. He drained the last of his uisge glass, made a face that suggested both pain and contentment, and left.
A waiter asked Harris and Doc whether they were here for dinner or drinks. Doc ordered wine.
Harris discreetly watched Eamon Moon. The man did little but listen to the musicians, sip his drink, and exchange words with other patrons as they passed his table. "Boring guy."
"Where's his fire?"
"His gun? I don't know. Do you?"
"Yes."
"Well, where?"
"My point is that you should be able to tell me."
"Oh." Harris looked a little more closely. "This is where all these damned baggy fair world clothes are going to trip me up."
"There's no need to curse, Harris."
After two more of the band's songs, he said, "He's a compulsive kind of guy. Does everything the same way. Lifts his wineglass the same way everytime. Checks his pocket watch every so often."
"Yes."
"Left armpit."
"Yes. How do you know?"
"He checks it every time he pulls out his pocket watch, doesn't he?"
"Very good. Where is his bodyguard sitting?"
"Bodyguard?"
The band's instrumental number ended. The crowd applauded. A large, dusky-skinned musician stood and took center stage; at the back of the band, a bagpiper stood.
The piper began to play an eerie, unhappy wail. In an earthquake rumble of a voice, the other man sang,
He tells me again, "I can do you no more,
No work to be had," and he shows me the door.
Long day of walking, I'm sore o' the foot,
Naught to show for it but a hole i' my boot.
The door to my flat does not yield to my knock.
The boy says my lady has changed out the lock.
And through the barred door all the world hears her say,
"From my room and my bed I must turn you away."
The rhythm was wrong, the instrument was wrong, the setting was wrong, but Harris felt a sudden shock as he recognized what he was hearing. He put his head down on the table. "He's singing the blues."
"What do you mean?"
"That's what we call it on the grim world. The blues." Harris lifted his head to stare imploringly at Doc. "But, oh my God, on the bagpipe?"
"That's the way it's done. What else could sound so soulful?"
"Do you suppose anyone would get mad if I beat both of them to death?"
"I think it would spoil our watch."
"Oh, yeah." Harris suffered through eight more stanzas of the mournful musician's troubles. He felt much better when the singer and piper sat to the audience's inexplicable applause. Two other musicians rose and began a duel of hammered dulcimers.
Harris' relief didn't last long. Angus Powrie appeared at Eamon Moon's side and leaned over to speak in the man's ear. Harris stiffened.
"Better than I had hoped," Doc said.
Powrie didn't stay. He clapped Moon on the back with rough familiarity and walked toward the exit.
Doc dropped a coin on the table and rose. "A change in plans," he said. "I'll follow Powrie. You call the Foundation and have someone come out to join you. Jean-Pierre, preferably. Keep watching Eamon Moon."
"Right."
Doc walked after Angus Powrie with studied casualness.
Harris signaled the waiter. When the man came over, he said, "I need a talk-box for an outside call—oh, hell."
Eamon Moon was on his feet, placing coins on his table. So was the thick-waisted, gloomy man Doc had identified as his bodyguard.
"Never mind," Harris said, and waved the waiter away. He kept his face turned toward the band but watched Moon and his man leave the club. Once the bodyguard was out the door, Harris followed. He struggled to keep his breathing regular.
It got worse. As soon as he got out to the sidewalk, Harris saw Moon and his bodyguard pull away from the curb in a gleaming red convertible.
Harris cursed. Doc had the car. He looked up the street. There was no taxicab in sight, just a steady stream of oncoming traffic, and Moon's convertible would be out of sight in a matter of moments.
He sprinted after Moon's car. It trailed away, shrinking into a distinctive pair of taillights in the distance. Harris had to have a car, and fast.
He crossed into the roadway, glancing back. Two cars back was a low-slung roadster, a gleaming black. Harris put on a burst of speed, crossed the lane empty of oncoming traffic, and made a leap for the roadster.
He landed clean on the running board and grabbed the top of the door.
The car was filled with kids—they looked like they were barely in college years, two boys and three girls, ranging from very fair to nut-brown, all dressed up in eye-poking colors. They all wore identical straw hats with red hatbands and looked at him wide-eyed.
"I'm with the Sidhe Foundation," Harris said. The cliché was out of his mouth before he could check it: "Follow that car."
Their sudden, united cheer startled him; he almost fell off into the street.
Doc, in his roadster, kept two cars back from Angus Powrie's taxi. That massive green vehicle, shaped something like a giant scarab beetle, headed south on King's Road, keeping a steady pace. Then it turned left onto Island Way, the highway that crossed the Island Bridge, and put on a burst of speed.
Doc shook his head. Powrie, canny after decades in the criminal life, had to have spotted him. The redcap wouldn't be leading him anywhere. Doc pulled the too-warm blond wig off, dropping it on the seat beside him, then accelerated and whipped around the car ahead of him.
The cab's wheels screamed as it turned right, too sharply, and disappeared behind a long residential building. Doc sent his more maneuverable roadster into a tighter turn and got the cab in sight again. It was accelerating, a straight-line run past cross-street after cross-street.
Doc stood on the accelerator and gained on it. Within a block, he was on the taxi's bumper. He made sure his automatic pistol was still in the shoulder holster.
The driver gave up. He pulled to the curb and switched off the red light on the hood that said he was engaged. Doc pulled in beside him and jumped out, leveling his gun at the taxi's occupants.
Occupant. The streetlight showed only the taxi driver, a man with a lined face and a startled expression. The driver raised his hands.
"Where is he?"
"Most amazing thing I ever saw," said the driver. "Dropped me a full lib and said to keep going. Just off Island Way, he jumped clean out of the car! Hit so hard he bounced. Did you ever hear of such a thing?"
Doc sighed and holstered his gun. Well, at least Harris and Jean-Pierre still had Eamon Moon under observation.
"Are you really with the Sidhe Foundation?" asked the driver. She was tiny, blond, and naturally wide-eyed even after her composure returned.
"Yes, I—"
The boy beside her asked, "Are you after a gunman? A spy?"
"Well—"
"Do you know the prince? He's to swoon for."
"I think he's wearing makeup. Are you wearing makeup? Your face is running."
"How did you get so big?"
Harris stretched on tiptoe. Over the roof of the car in front he could still see the taillights of Moon's car. It was turning. He crouched again, holding tight. "Take a right at the next street."
The girl braked and turned expertly; the maneuver pressed Harris against the door. "How do you join?" she asked. "Is there a test?"
Suddenly there were no cars between the kids' and Moon's. Harris returned to a crouch. "Hell if I know. I just sort of fell into it."
"Well, that's not very helpful. You can't plan to fall into things, can you?" She didn't wait for an answer. "Is that the one, the red Bellweather?"
"Yeah. Is that what it is, a Bellweather?"
"Last year's."
"How do you know?"
"By the taillights."
"That's good, very good. You know a lot about cars?"
"I love cars. I plan to be very rich so I can have one for every day of the moon."
"Good plan." The car made another right turn; he held on tight as the girl followed. "That taillight thing is a good trick. Learn lots of neat stuff like that. It'll probably improve your odds with Doc."
"Truly?" She beamed a smile like a headlight at him.
The boy beside her asked, "He lets you call him Doc?"
They were on a broad four-lane that ran along the shore of what would have been the Hudson River. Between warehouses and dark businesses, Harris had frequent glimpses of the river and of the piers arrayed along it.
Ahead, the Bellweather turned left beside a large warehouse building. Harris said, "Stay on the road. But go slow, please."
They cruised past. Harris saw the Bellweather stopped in front of a big warehouse. The car honked. Just before the building hid them, Harris saw the big door begin to slide open, light shining from beyond.
They passed in front of the office building in front of the warehouse, a part of it. The painted sign above the main entrance, dimly lit by a small spotlight, read "Aremorcy Waterways." "Okay, can you stop here?"
She pulled the car to the side and braked. He stepped off, staring at the building. A heavy, monolithic thing of dark brick. Three stories. Shuttered windows on the upper stories. "What street are we on?"
She laughed at him. "Western High Road. How many roads do you think run along the river?"
"Oh."
"Are you carrying fire?" asked the older of the two girls in the backseat.
The boy in the middle asked, "Doesn't the Foundation give you an auto?"
"Can I drive you somewhere else?" the driver asked. "The guard-station?"
He smiled at her. "Sure." He stepped back up on the running board. "How about the Monarch Building?"
"Oh, good."
Back in the laboratory, Doc managed a derisive snort. "Perhaps if I'd enlisted the aid of a car full of university students, I'd not have been outmaneuvered so easily. No, you did very well, Harris." He turned to face everybody. "Harris, Gaby, the rest of us will be visiting this place in Morcymeath. It's likely to be the center of their activities in Neckerdam. This will be a raid, possibly very dangerous. The two of you will stay here."
Harris started to nod.
Gaby said, "No way in hell."
Everyone looked at her. Doc said, "Why not?"
She took a deep breath before answering. "Doc, I'm not going to let you all go out and risk your lives for me. Not while I stay safe on the top of your ivory tower. What if you got hurt? What if you got killed? How could I live with that?"
Doc shrugged. "It's what we've chosen to do."
"Well, it's what I—" She looked startled. "It's what I'm choosing to do."
Harris saw Doc's face brighten and Joseph's face fall. The taciturn giant looked as though he'd just come to the funeral of a friend.
In spite of his smile, Doc said, "You're not trained in it, Gabriela."
"So tell me where to go and what to do so I don't put any of you in danger."
Harris fumed. If she went, he had to go. He fought down the urge to strangle Gaby.
Doc looked at Harris. "Do you agree with her?"
"Oh, absolutely." Harris spoke the biggest lie of his life with utter conviction. Gaby turned her smile on him. That made it a lot better.
"Then you're a pair of fools. Make yourselves ready."
In the bouncing back of the Sidhe Foundation's delivery truck, Harris sat on a bench and unfolded one of Fergus' maps of Neckerdam. He saw that if this were Manhattan, Morcymeath would have been the entire southern tip of the island, and there were more piers here than in the corresponding area on the grim world.
He glanced around at the others arrayed on the two benches. Everyone but Doc and Jean-Pierre, who were in the truck's cab. Alastair had his Klapper autogun partially disassembled; as he put it back together again, Gaby watched in grim fascination. She held a tarnished bolt-action rifle; it looked incongruously big and old in her hands. There were wooden cabinets bolted to the truck walls above their heads; Harris had already seen the weapons racked inside them, had been given more firepower than he'd ever carried before. This was a primeval SWAT van.
Joseph, beside him, looked gloomier than ever. Harris nudged him with his knee. "Hey. What's eating you?"
"You and Gabriela should not be here."
"Tell me about it. What about you?"
"I am hard to hurt."
"You stand in front, then."
"I will."
"I was joking."
They all slid a few inches toward the cab as the truck slowed and stopped. The lightbulb against the van roof went dark.
A moment later, Doc pulled open the back doors of the truck. Atypically, he wore black clothes and his hair was tucked up under a black felt cap with earflaps; it looked hot. "Out, and quiet," he said.
They disembarked into the deep shadow cast by the monstrous skyscrapers of Morcymeath. Though a few of the buildings had windows lit, at this hour most of Neckerdam's businesses were closed for the night, and Doc had chosen a dark side street.
Two other trucks were parked behind Doc's. Harris saw people climbing out their rear doors. They seemed young but quietly professional, perhaps a dozen men and half a dozen women, all clad in uniforms made black by the night.
Doc waved one over. The burly, bearded man who approached was better dressed than the others; in addition to the uniform trousers, tunic, boots and holster belt, this man had elaborate gold trim on the tunic and a hip-length cloak. He saluted Doc—at least Harris assumed it was a salute; the man held his open palm on his breast for a moment as though he were listening to "The Star-Spangled Banner."
Doc returned the salute. "Good to work with you again, Lieutenant Athelstane," he said. He gestured at the hulk of a building down the block and across the intersecting street. "Position your men on the south, north, and west sides; my associates will be on the east. There's the chance that this is a legitimate business, so be cautious. But I think it's more likely this will be similar to any glitter-bright distillery raid."
"Meaning they'll fight like trapped rats."
Doc smiled sourly. "Rats with autoguns. You're to wait for my signal, but use your discretion. If you hear shouts or gunfire, don't bother to wait. Dismissed." They traded salutes, and Athelstane turned to rejoin his troops.
As the lieutenant led his people away into the darkness, the others clustered around Doc. Jean-Pierre was not in his usual elegant dress; he wore baggy workman's clothes and a cloth cap.
Doc said, "We have to assume the doors are watched. Noriko, you and I will creep up beside the front door and wait for Jean-Pierre. Alastair, I want you and your Klapper on the other side of the street on the north corner for fire support." He frowned at Harris. "You're not carrying a long arm."
"I've never fired a rifle. I took a couple of revolvers from the truck, on top of my usual." Harris patted his coat pockets, felt the reassuring weight of the weapons and ammunition they held.
"You'll need to be close, then. Like Alastair, but south corner. But you won't be entering; stay at that position and keep any gunmen from leaving the building."
"Sure."
Doc looked at Gaby. There was nothing but joyless resolve in her expression. "Jean-Pierre, how is she with that?"
"Straight and true."
"Gaby and Joseph, stay here with the truck. You're our final line of reinforcement on this flank. Don't act unless you have to. Any questions?"
There were none. Doc nodded at the rest of them, then he and Noriko melted away into the shadows.
Harris looked at Alastair. The doctor gestured for him to wait; then, after several seconds, pointed at the wall behind Harris. Harris moved there and walked in the deep shadow beside the wall, while Alastair matched him beside the building across the street.
Harris' heart pounded. Prefight jitters again. He concentrated on his breathing, tried to make it slow and even.
In a minute, because of Gaby's damned insistence that she come along, he might have to shoot somebody.
Kill somebody.
He reached the corner of the building, the closest approach to the cargo house, and stopped there within its shadow.
A few feet ahead, cars were parked along the sidewalk. Beyond them was the broad four-lane street, and beyond that was the combined warehouse and office he'd seen before. There were no cars parked in front of the office. Traffic was not heavy, but the cars that did pass were moving fast.
Across the side street to his right, Alastair had set up just short of the corner of his building. The doctor's attention was fixed on the front of the building they would soon be assaulting.
He took another look at the building, evaluating it in terms of what Doc planned for them to do. In the middle of the building face there was an inset a dozen feet deep; there, the steps of a stoop rose half a dozen feet to the heavy, round-topped wooden door that seemed to be the place's main entrance. There were shuttered windows above the entrance, and Harris could see another window on the right wall of the inset; if there was yet another window on the left wall of the inset, Alastair would be able to see it. Harris saw no street-level stairwells leading down to a basement entrance.
Doc appeared on the stoop as if by magic. He stood to the left of the door, back flat against the wall. Harris could see only his face—in profile, turned toward the door—and his left hand. Doc gestured, and Noriko appeared almost as suddenly, climbing up over the right concrete banister of the stoop. They flanked the door and froze into immobility.
From his pockets, Harris drew out the two pistols he'd been given in the truck. They were both bigger than the one he'd been carrying, the one he still wore just over his kidney. Instead of having swing-out cylinders, they were break-loaders, long-barrelled weapons, comfortingly heavy. He broke each one open to make sure it was loaded.
Jean-Pierre, carrying some sort of clipboard and a package wrapped in brown paper, breezed past him with a wink. He had copper-red hair and a bristly beard to match, courtesy of Harris and Siobhan Damvert's makeup case. "You'll do fine," he whispered.
Jean-Pierre dodged traffic to cross the street, then trotted up the stoop of the office building and knocked loudly.
There was no immediate response. Harris saw him stand there, slouching, the bill of his cap drawn low, as relaxed and indifferent as though he weren't flanked by two people carrying dangerous weapons.
Harris saw a little rectangle of light appear in the doorway at about face-level. A small panel, like Harris had seen in movies about speakeasies. A face appeared in the opening.
Cars roared by and Harris couldn't hear any of Jean-Pierre's words. He could see Jean-Pierre offering the package, gesturing with the clipboard, shaking his head.
The little panel closed. Jean-Pierre froze.
Doc swung around and put his fist through the panel. Harris heard a crack of wood. Doc jammed his arm in the hole, almost to the shoulder, then pulled. He yanked the man's head through the hole, splintering wood above and below. The man squealed, harsh and loud as an angry wildcat.
Harris moved forward to kneel behind the nearest car. He set one of the pistols down beside him, brought the other one up in a two-handed grip, and readied himself to kill.