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track lights and the water carafe, just beyond reach on the table.
    They'd searched him on the plaza. Taking his ID, a graying captain had put him aboard a helicopter, escorted by two senior NCOs. "You'll have to see the colonel," he said.
    As the chopper lifted, John saw them zipping Wenschel into an olive drab body bag.
    A silent lieutenant had escorted him from the heliport to Interrogation, deep within the Hospital. Shackling arms and legs to the metal chair, he'd mumbled "SOP" and left. A moment later, the lights had blazed high.
    He waited a long time, counting slowly to five thousand and thirty-eight before Aldridge came, squinting through his bifocals in the blazing light. "Erich," he called. "Dim those lights, please."
    In the subdued glow, Aldridge took out a key, unfastening the fetters. As John stretched and rubbed his limbs, the colonel poured him a glass of tepid water. He tossed it down. "Thank you, sir," he said hoarsely.
    "Send you into town and you kill one of my men, Major." The colonel's voice was mild as he pulled up the other chair and sat facing John. "Why?"
    "Because he disobeyed my direct order, sir."
    "Not because he brutalized and killed a desperate, beautiful young woman, Major?" His tone was all gentle rebuke.
    "She was a beautiful killer, sir. She murdered a whole lot . . ."
    "Eleven."
    "Eleven innocent people. She certainly wasn't deserving of mercy."
    Aldridge nodded, smiling his wistful scholar's smile. "True. And I've found that summary execution has a soothing effect on the genteel classes, far beyond the value of the intelligence we usually extract-—it's policy for such incidents."
    He rose, pacing for a moment, then turned, big hands gripping the back of his chair. "Your action was ill-advised, Harrison, but I'll support it. Sergeant Hallam disobeyed a direct order. You were within your rights, especially not knowing my policies." He wagged a bony, admonitory finger. "Don't do it again."
    "No, sir. Sorry for the trouble. Who was the terrorist, Colonel?"
    "Some nameless ganger on courier run. They have friends among our technoaristocracy, Major. Revolution may be fueled by peasant hatred, but it's always directed by middle-class malcontents. Mao, Lenin, Trotsky, Marx, Engels, General Giap, all come to mind.
    "Did you know that Giap was briefly a busboy here in Boston, at the old Parker House?"
    "No, Colonel, I didn't," said John dully.
    "Yes. Trained at Carlton House, London, as a chef de cuisine. Imagine eating a five-star French dinner prepared by the scourge of French colonialism."
    He stood.
    "I'm assigning you as patrol officer for the next week— good way to learn procedure. You'll be working with Erich's special troops. Better get some rest."
    John rose, limping painfully as the blood surged back into his feet.
    Aldridge helped him to the door, where a barrel-chested sergeant major waited impassively. "Erich's first-rate, Harrison. Watch him and learn."
    John and the NCO gone, Aldridge spoke. "What do you think?"
    "Maybe," replied zur Linde, voice hollow over the monitor. "Certainly he bears watching.
    "His retina scan came back during your chat, sir."
    "Positive, of course," said Aldridge. "Of course."
    "Keep on him, Erich, keep on him. If he's Opposition, we'll want to know everything before he's killed. Klar'V "Klar, Hen Oberst."
    Turning the field jacket collar against the biting wind, John adjusted his starhelm and stepped cautiously into what had been a street.
    This part of the city was utterly destroyed, worked by howitzer fire into story-high mounds of masonry that choked the once broad avenues, ruins the starhelm showed in green-white-red phosphors.
    Alone with the night and the northeast wind, John moved through the desolation like a wraith. Overhead, the stars shone cold and hard, undimmed by urban albedo. Here and there the rotting vestiges of shattered elms jutted through.
    The gargoyle was an impish green through John's starhelm, grinning viciously atop a great