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caught him, rescued him, or helped him off that platform? And what was the purpose of murder41 ing these innocents?
    Had they been tortured for information and eliminated once they provided it, or because they had not? Or was this simply vengeance? Chaim had been vitriolic in his revulsion of GC Peacekeepers, of the breaking of the covenant between the GC
    and Israel.
    Though he had never been a religious Jew, he expressed horror over the intrusion of the world government into the very affairs of the temple. First the Jews had been allowed to rebuild; then they were not allowed to conduct themselves the way they wished in the new temple.
    But do you extinguish the household of a statesman, a national treasure, for such an offense? And what of the man himself? Buck’s head throbbed, his chest felt tight, and he was short of breath. He was desperate to be with Chloe and Kenny and felt as if he could hold them tight for three and a half years. He knew the odds. Each had only a one in four chance of surviving until the Glorious Appearing. But even if he, or they, had to go to heaven before that, he didn’t want it to be this way. No one deserved this. No one but Carpathia.
    It had been a long time since David had suffered such carping. On the way to his office from the palace hangar, past a full-dress color guard of pallbearers and a heavily armed ring of security personnel, his beeper had signaled a top-level emergency message. The call could have originated only locally, of course, but this sort of a code was reserved for life-and-death situations. He did not recog42 nisei the callback number but knew it was located in the palace proper.
    Normally he would have called back immediately, fearing danger to Annie or himself, but he took a moment to trace the number against the personnel list and found that the call came from the Arts and Sciences wing. He had been there only once, knew virtually no one there, and had been so repulsed by what was considered artistic that he recalled rushing back to his quarters feeling soiled.
    Wanting at least one more clue before replying, David called his own voice mail, only to be met by the foul, nasty rantings of a sassy artiste. David had not heard such profanity and gutter language since high school. The gist of the message: “Where are you? Where could you be at a time like this? It’s the middle of the night! Do you even know of the murder? Call me! It’s an emergency!”
    David’s beeper vibrated again-same number. He waited ninety seconds and called his voice mail again.
    “Do you know who I am? Guy Blod?!” The man pronounced Guy as Gee with a hard G, the French way, and Blod to rhyme with cod, as if Scandinavian. David had seen him scurrying around a few times but had never spoken with him. His reputation preceded him. He was the temperamental but lauded painter and sculptor, Carpathia’s own choice for minister of the creative arts.
    Not only had he painted several of the so-called masterpieces that graced the great hall and the palace, but he had also sculpted many of the statues of world heroes in the courtyard and supervised the decorating of all GC buildings in New Babylon. He was considered a genius, but David-though admittedly no expert-considered his work laughably gaudy and decidedly profane. “The more shocking and anti-God the better” had to have been Blod’s premise.
    Part of David wanted Guy Blod to have to wait for a callback, but this was the wrong time to start puffing his anti-GC chest. He would take no guff from Guy Blod, but he had to remain above suspicion and ingratiated to Fortunato. He dialed Blod as he settled behind his computer and began to program it to record directly from the morgue on a sound-activated basis.
    As Blod answered, David noticed a list of messages on his computer. “This is Guy,” he announced, “and you had better be David Hassid.” He put the emphasis on the first syllable.
    “It’s hah- SEED ,” David said.
    “That