Then it was quiet as death.

  Five minutes passed before the forward door popped open. Figures entered, moving slowly while inspecting every quiescent body. Occasionally a passenger who’d fallen into the aisle had to be gently lifted and returned to an empty seat.

  The intruders were completely encased in suits of flexible silvery material that was transparent from the neck up. These suits were designed to protect their wearers not only from the intentionally fouled atmosphere inside the plane but from more motile dangers.

  In addition to protecting the wearer from most beam weapons and many solid projectile guns, the charged field suits could also, at the touch of a switch, fill themselves with several thousand volts. The charge could be regulated, to stun or to kill on contact. They were not activated now, but nervous fingers hovered close to controls.

  “I don’t see him,” said the leader of the squad. Not satisfied to rely for protection on his suit, he also carried a stun pistol. Like the suit, it was linked to the battery pack on the man’s back.

  He stepped over an unconscious girl of eleven. “Charlene, you and Habib check the first-class compartment.”

  “He wasn’t traveling first class,” the woman behind him objected.

  “I know, but he might have switched over in-flight. We can’t take chances. Watch yourselves.”

  “What chances?” the woman protested. “Everyone on board will be out twenty-four hours, including him. I don’t understand all the precautions. Seems like a bloody lot of trouble to go through to take one fugitive.”

  “You heard the reports from Nueva York.”

  “Sure, we heard them,” said the dark-skinned man standing near the woman, “but that doesn’t mean we must believe them. You know our American friends—always prone to exaggeration. It’s their proclivity for romanticizing crime.”

  “Our job’s not to evaluate, Habib. All we have to do is follow orders.”

  “Suit yourself, Sergeant.” Habib and the woman moved away. Others came aboard to take their place.

  The silvery figures continued their inspection of the aisles, moving together toward the back of the plane.

  “I overheard,” said a burly newcomer to the sergeant. “What is the big deal with this guy? There’s going to be hell to pay when this hits the media. Imagine snucking a whole plane to take one man!”

  “It won’t reach the media,” said the sergeant, “unless somebody opens their big, fat mouth. Then there will be hell to pay.”

  “Don’t look at me, Sarge,” said the questioner. He paused to adjust an elderly man who’d fallen awkwardly from his seat. “I think this one’s got a broken arm. How are they going to keep the hospital cases secret?”

  “Not our concern,” said the sergeant. “That’s in the lap of the Chief and Airport Security, thank goodness. All we’ve got to do is find this bloke.”

  Find him they did, several minutes later.

  “Looks like he made a run for the exit,” suggested one of the argent police. "He must’ve held his bloody breath forever.”

  “Not long enough.” The sergeant eyed Eric Abbott’s motionless form speculatively. He certainly didn’t look like much, he thought. “Looks like he gave it a good try, though.” He glanced back up the aisle.

  “His ticket says he was in seat eighteen. Here he is back at forty-four. That's a helluva run under the gas. Doesn’t take but a whiff of that stuff to put you under.”

  “Maybe he was back here to go to the loo," suggested one of the bobbies.

  “Could be. We won’t find out.” The sergeant checked his chronometer. “Time to haul him out of here. We can thank our stars for this rotten weather. Hides us from the terminal.” He reached down and slipped Abbott’s legs under his arms.

  “How come you get the light end?” grumbled the next bobbie in line.

  "Because I’m a sergeant and you’re only a corporal. Put some back into it.”

  Together they wrestled the unconscious form up the aisle. Other silver-suited commandos made way for them, commenting as they passed.

  “’E’s nothin’ to look at,” muttered one. “Bloody lot of trouble for nothin’.”

  “Aye,” said Charlene, who’d returned from first class to have a glimpse of their quarry. “Good-looking, though, in a quiet kind of way.”

  “You might not think so if half of what 'e did in Nueva were true.”

  “Can’t you see their faces when they hear how easy a time of it we had bringing him in?” They shared a chuckle as they followed the limp body out of the plane and down the mobile stairway.

  Abbott was hustled into an idling, unmarked van. Inside he was slipped onto a waiting pallet. Straps were crossed over his body from neck to ankles. Arms and legs merited separate treatment. Two women in white monitored the captive’s vital signs. If he showed any movement they were ready and prepared to insure that he didn’t wake up.

  The van’s engine rose to a soft whine against the rain. Behind it, police commandos were exiting the plane in a steady stream. Several had already unfastened their headgear and pushed it back as they walked toward a waiting bus. They chatted easily among themselves, pleased that the operation had gone so smoothly.

  Much ado about nothing, as one said to a companion.

  XIV

  He was drowning in one of Lisa’s eyes. It was explosive bright blue. New blue, ice blue, Blume blue as he’d once told her. The blue was not surprising. The eye was all water, which was.

  He’d fallen helplessly toward it, arms flailing, legs kicking, tumbling over and over until he struck the limpid surface and plunged ten meters deep. Kicking furiously, he swam upward, clawing for air, until he broke the surface of the eye.

  Painfully he began swimming for shore, aiming himself at the high, fleshy ridge which bordered the cold liquid. A silvery moon lit the surface from high overhead. You could hear the sound of tears lapping the lower shore as they fell from the corner of the ophthalmic ocean, falling upward toward the sky, where they blurred the crescent moon.

  As he turned to rest awhile by swimming on his back, he found he could see the great eyelid, its delicate black barbs curving upward into the night like the ribs of some vanished alien building. They trembled delicately as she cried.

  It was a wonder that in the darkness the water held its bright blue, a clear blue the color of water viewed through arctic pack ice. He knew the strain was telling on her as she fought to keep from blinking and crushing him, and he tried to swim faster, but the water was thick and cloying and he was tired, so tired.

  So he blinked instead. The night sky disappeared, to be replaced by a vague, watery haze. He didn’t open his eyes all the way, only a crack, just enough to ascertain that he was conscious and aware.

  There were voices around him, deep rumblings in the air. Mumbled syllables passed like swift verse among unseen shapes. He lay still and listened and peeked, the gauze that masked his vision slowly dissolving away.

  Some kind of hospital. He was in some kind of hospital that was more than a hospital, because the windows were crossed with metal bars. He found he could look down at himself without moving his head. Straps crossed his chest, and when he twitched one leg he felt others restraining him there: one at the thigh, one at the knee, a third at the foreleg, and a last securing his ankle.

  There were other beds, most of them occupied by people who supplied the voices he heard. Some were sitting up, most lying down. Light came from long fluorescent sticks set in a high ceiling. The walls were not painted so much as they were enameled a pale blue. It looked like solid plastic, but he knew it was only paint.

  Two or three of the voices around him were shouting. They made no more sense than those that passed in whispers. Occasionally a figure in white passed the foot of his bed, ignoring him. Some were male, some female. Red chevrons decorated the sleeves of their uniforms. They reminded him of the bars that blocked the high windows.

  After a while two new figures appeared and approached his resting place. As soon as he determined they were heading toward him, he closed his eyes and held himself as motionless as possible. He could hear them breathing above him, could feel the pressure of their stares against his face.

  “You really think all these straps are necessary?” asked a feminine voice.

  “I don’t know, Doctor,” a man replied. “I wasn’t consulted when he was brought in.”

  “It seems extreme,” the woman said. The concern in her voice was professional rather than personal. “I don't see how he can do anyone any harm when he’s so heavily sedated.”

  “I agree, Doctor. It makes more work for the duty nurse, but the instructions they gave us were explicit.”

  “What a waste of time and money.” There was a brief pause and he heard a wrist terminal beep twice. “He’s got enough topalamine and endozite-B in him to keep a platoon of soldiers harmless Risky enough.”

  “I told them,” said the man, “but they didn’t seem to care if he recovered full motor function or not. They just want him kept unconscious and alive.

  “You know, sometimes I hate this damn job, Doctor. Sometimes I think of quitting to take an outside job.”

  “Take it easy, Charles,” said the woman. “We’re monitoring him constantly. He'll come out of it okay."

  “Maybe he will, but there's no medical reason why his body should have to deal with injections at these levels. It’s bordering on toxicity. I won’t be held responsible if something happens.”

  “Nothing’s going to happen, Charles,” said the woman soothingly. “In any case, he’s not a European citizen. By nine tonight there’ll be a team in from North America to take over. Then he’ll be out of our hands and we’ll never see him again.”

  “No, but I’ll still have to think about him,” the man muttered. A longer silence, then, “I wonder what the hell he did to merit this kind of treatment? I wonder what he’s wanted for?”

  “I’ve no idea, Charles, and I don’t care to know. He may be a murderer or simply an embezzler. We don’t judge, we only treat. Frankly, I share your concerns. I’ll be glad to see him go.”

  “I don’t give a damn what he did; it stinks to see a man tied down like that.”

  “It doesn’t bother him. He can’t feel a thing, Charles. You know that.”

  They chatted a while longer, using a lot of technical medical terms unfamiliar to Eric. Then they went away.

  He wondered what time it was. Dull light came in through the barred windows. After a while he opened one eye slightly.

  They were coming for him tonight. Who was? A team from North America. That would include Tarragon or his deputies. They would take him out of this place and back to Nueva York, and then what? He didn’t know and he couldn’t imagine and he didn’t want to find out, any more than he could allow them to put an ocean between him and Lisa again.

  How had they traced him? Had someone at the airport recognized him from a description given by the clerk he’d made use of? He remembered his plane landing, the pilot’s aggravated voice announcing the short delay, the woman returning with her daughter from the restroom who suddenly keeled over in the middle of the aisle for no reason at all. Then running, running desperately for the rear exit, never smelling anything, not sensing anything as he’d reached for the handle. Whatever they’d employed had been fast, odorless, and powerful.

  Then waking up in This Place. Wherever that might be. For all he could tell he might be on the Continent instead of in London. But the accents around him were mostly English.

  He had to get out somehow. First get away, then find Lisa. The bars on the windows were more informative than obstructive. Some kind of prison hospital, most likely.

  He tried to sit up, found he could move only a little. More than strong straps held him immobile. His muscles refused to obey the commands of his mind. Forcing himself to relax, he considered the problem. He’d never been drugged before and found the sensation interesting. Feet and hands were numb, the rest of him only slightly less inoperative.

  Strange what the brain concocts when suspended halfway between wakefulness and death. Imagine how it would be to stand upright again, to walk. His mind was clear and his vision no longer blurred. Imagine how things would have to change for walking to become possible.

  First his body would have to purge itself of whatever chemicals they’d shoved into his bloodstream. It wouldn’t be enough to run them through the kidneys. The molecules would have to be broken down, the bonds destroyed. Too complex a job for white blood cells. Something more complex and yet more subtle was required.

  Even as he lay motionless considering the problem, be could feel himself growing stronger, could sense more and more muscle fibers twitching in response to his desires. The voices around him became understandable. The accents were English. Still somewhere in Britain, then. Maybe no longer in London, but somewhere below old Hadrian’s Wall. That was vastly encouraging.

  Lying on the bed with his eyes shut tight, he knew only that he was becoming himself again. There was no conscious awareness of the breakdown of complex narcotics within his body. Once he had to take care to lie especially still when some doctor appeared.

  He felt something prick his right arm and sensed the injection. His mind fluttered and thoughts wavered for a moment while he briefly reexperienced the near-forgotten sensation of swimming in a dark blue lake.

  But he was expecting it this time and did not lapse into dreams. The doctor was joined by two others. It required a tremendous effort not to open his eyes for a look at his captors.

  “Is this the one?” A new voice, American accented.

  “That’s him.” The female physician who visited him earlier. How much earlier? He didn’t know.

  “Doesn’t look threatening.”

  “That’s what we thought when they wheeled him in.”

  A faint breeze cooled his nostrils, perhaps the result of someone’s passing a hand over his face.

  “Now, some of these chaps in here,” Charles said, “I could understand all this nonsense. Take MacReadie down there. Third bed, left side of the aisle. A double murderer, and he’s neither sedated nor strapped down. If this one’s psychotic he doesn’t belong in here. He belongs over in Block C, in the mental ward.”

  “From what I’ve been told, this one’s not psychotic,” said the American voice. “Just damn dangerous.”

  “Someone certainly thinks so,” said the woman doctor. “I’ll be glad to be rid of him.”

  “I understand. If he starts giving you trouble …

  “A laugh from Charles, derisive rather than amused. “Not bloody likely. He’s saturated.”

  “Nevertheless, the reports I’ve received are full of the most dire warnings. If anything untoward occurs, you must get in touch with me immediately.”

  “I know,” said the woman. “Your people are in the Newlin Building, aren’t they?”

  In his excitement Eric was positive he jumped a little, sure he’d given away his awareness. But they must not have been watching him at that moment. Or else they simply didn’t notice. He tried to still the beating of his heart, certain the sudden rush would draw their attention.

  “Right, well, I’m off,” said the American.

  “So are we,” said Charles. “Look, couldn’t you tell us what this chap’s wanted for?”

  “Sorry.” The American was pleasant but unyielding. “I’m not authorized.”

  “Must be something extraordinary,” Charles muttered.

  “Must be,” admitted the American in neutral tones.

  Eric listened to their conversation until they’d wandered beyond range of his hearing. Electric before his eyes were the words Newlin Building. Now he had a destination, a place to begin. And something else: that newcomer’s voice. He’d memorized it as surely as he’d memorized the name of the building. If he heard it in a crowded store, he’d be able to pick it out of a mob. That voice could put him on Lisa’s trail.

  He hesitated. The man hadn’t indicated where this Newlin Building was located. It might be in London. It might also be in Glasgow, or Manchester, or Portsmouth. But if that were the case, if it wasn’t located in the same city as the hospital, surely the man would have specified its location? He felt better. It had to be in the same county as the hospital.

  A destination. It was all he needed.

  The chemical factory that was his body continued to cleanse itself. It was amazing how refreshed he felt two hours later. It was as though the events of the past hours, much less the past couple of weeks, had had no cumulative effect on him at all.

  He tried an experiment, attempted to raise his left hand. It came up easily, halted only by the strap. The strap was keeping him from his beloved, from Lisa. It was a dirty, inhumane way to treat any human being. He’d been trapped like an animal and now they were treating him like one. He pushed angrily at the strap.

  There was a soft spang as the restraint snapped. It should not have snapped. It was fashioned of carbon-fiber mesh padded on the underside so as not to bruise the flesh beneath. It was stronger than steel and it broke as easily as a rubber band. He raised his right arm and the sound was repeated twice, since there was a strap at his elbow as well as at his wrist.

  Then he sat up and there were lots of snapping, spanging sounds. He’d waited until the room was empty of medical personnel but he dare not wait too long. The men from the Newlin Building, the men with the nameless faces, were coming for him soon. He smiled. If they would give him just a few minutes, he would save them the trouble of making the trip.

  Somewhere in the room someone suddenly murmured loudly, “Cor, would you ’ave a look at that!” He thought it might have been the double murderer with the broken leg. Other voices spoke in stunned whispers, one in a foreign language he didn’t recognize.

  Reaching down, he ripped away the rest of the restraints, turned sideways on the bed, and stretched luxuriously. His muscles were on fire.