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should be easy enough to remember, Mr. Hayseed. Now where have you been?”
    “Excuse me?”
    “I’ve been trying to call you!”

    “That’s why I called you, sir.”
    “Don’t get smart with me. Don’t you know what’s happened?”
    “Nobody tells me anything, Mr. Blod.” David chuckled. “Of course I know what’s happened. Did it occur to you that that might have been why I was difficult to reach?”
    “Well, I need stuff and I need it right now!”
    “What do you need, sir?”
    “Can you get it for me?”
    “Depends on what it is, Blod.”
    “That’s Mr. Blod to you, sweetie. I was told you could get anything.”
    “Well, almost.”
    “I have nowhere else to turn.”
    “I’ll do my best.”
    “You’d better. Now come to my office.”
    “Excuse me?”
    “Is this a bad connection? I said, come … to …my …”
    “I heard you, sir, but I have many things on my plate tonight, as you can imagine, and I can’t just—”
    “You can do as you’re told. Now get your tail over here, and I mean right now.”
    Click.
    David hung up and checked his messages. Most alarming was one from Rayford: “Our botanist reports the bird has flown. May need new real estate soonest. Signed, Geo. Logic”
    David squinted at the screen for several seconds, wishing he could call someone at the safe house, or Rayford.
    He was tempted to put the satellites back in operation just long enough to do it, but he knew someone would discover that and he would have to answer for it.
    So Hattie was gone and the safe house was in jeopardy. He deleted the message and hacked his way into the mainframe database of abandoned, condemned, destroyed, and/or radioactive buildings in the Midwest. He looked at his watch when the phone rang. Six minutes had passed.
    “What are you doing?”
    “I’m sorry?”
    “Is this David Hayseed?”
    “This is Director Hassid, yes.”
    “Do you know who this is?”
    “Yes! It sounds like Minister Blood. Haven’t talked to you in ages. Good to hear from you again—”
    “That’s Blod, and did I or did I not tell you to get over here?”
    “Is this multiple choice? I believe you did.”
    “Then why are you not here?”
    “Let me guess. Because I’m here?”
    “Agh! Listen here, you! Get over here this instant or—”
    “Or what? You’re going to tell my mom? I don’t recall being subordinate to you, sir. Now if you have something you need me to procure for you, and you have clearance from the Supreme Commander—”
    “A purchasing agent is not subordinate to a cabinet minister? Are you from Mars?”
    “Actually Israel, sir.”
    “Would you stop calling me sir?”
    “I thought you called me, sir.”
    “I mean quit calling me that!”
    “What? Sir? I’m sorry, I thought you were male.”
    “You stay right where you are, Director. I’ll be right over.”
    “That wasn’t so hard, was it, Guy? I mean, it’s you who wants to talk with me, not the other way ‘round.”
    Click.

THREE
    ROCKETING over the Mediterranean in the middle of the night, Rayford had about a two-hour flight to Greece.
    For the first fifteen minutes he monitored the radio to be sure he was not being pursued or triangulated. But the radio was full of merely repetitious requests for more aircraft to help evacuate Jerusalem in light of the earthquake and the assassination. There were also countless calls for planes available to cart the mourning faithful to New Babylon for what was expected to become the largest viewing and funeral in history.
    When the Gulfstream was far enough out over the water, local tower radio signals faded without satellite aid. Rayford tested that by trying to call his compatriots, to no avail. He switched off phone and radio, which left him in virtual silence at thirty-one thousand feet in a smooth-assilk jet, most of the noise of the craft behind him.
    Rayford suddenly felt the weight of life. Had it really he-en a mere three and a half years ago that he had enjoyed the prestige, the