The Good Walk Alone

Chapter 1: Secure the Scene

Janet DiMarco shook her head, refusing the idea. "What you're asking me to
do is impossible -- I can't just suddenly be a better person, a better me!" she
yelled angrily.

Her partner screamed in reply. Cubby Rice made an enormous amount of noise
when she got mad, and this wasn't the first time that Cubby blew her top when
DiMarco refused to go along with the program. "Damn it! -- listen to me,
Janet, and get off that high horse of yours for a minute!" she bellowed.

They were bumping along a dirt road at 30 kph in a Rover -- DiMarco
wrestling with the wheel and Cubby hanging from a roof handle, yelling at each
other. The old 4x4 rattled like a pile of junkyard parts that got bored and ran
away from home together. Potholes, loose rock, hard gullies meandered under
four wobbly wheels, and the result was a mechanical orchestra loud enough that
the two women had to shout at each other to carry on a conversation. No
wonder they ended up arguing. But it had to stop.

DiMarco was diplomatic. "Not a good time to talk about this, Cubby," she
yelled.

"No! -- Never a good time to talk, is there?" Cubby yelled back, conveying her
wounded sense of chronic betrayal.

DiMarco drew a deep breath, slammed the car into first gear, and took a muddy
incline at speed. After slathering through a deep, slippery patch, she could talk
again. "It's always important to me what you think," DiMarco affirmed. "You
have an excellent brain, Cynthia. I trust you completely -- and I appreciate what
you're saying." She took her eyes from the road a split second to see whether
Cubby was listening. Maybe she was, behind that hurt look.

The radio intervened and Cubby grabbed the mic with her free hand. "Seven,
copy," she barked. The snap, crackle, and roar of the engine made it impossible
to discriminate a radio voice. Turning up the volume made it worse. "Jan! --
pull ohh!" Cubby yelled a half second too late, because the car lept to a halt,
halfway up a mountain road with three wheels on dirt, the fourth dangling in a
ditch.

"Say again, Metro," Cubby requested in a tough growl, gazing at the radio mic
like a hand mirror, studying it carefully. The crease on her forehead meant
trouble. DiMarco hated trouble -- hated seeing it blow up like a storm on
Cubby's rock-hard face. Waiting for Metro to answer, DiMarco's compulsive
worry raced through a mental inventory of everything they were carrying in the
vehicle.

Thing No. 1 was a crime scene recorder, five tripods and a handheld box. It sat
next to the medical kit and an assault pack. The climbing gear lived in a trunk
that was too heavy to carry. Weapons were racked on the left, cable and lights
on the right. The rescue basket was filled with blankets and a winch. None of
these familiar objects gave her any comfort. It was a flight to trivia -- a diversion
that DiMarco indulged instead of biting her fingernails, waiting for bad news. All
news was bad news in her line of work. Here it came:

"Seven, repeat, be advised City Special is at the scene. Scrambling back-up."

Cubby cursed at the top of her lungs, then barked an acknowledgement into the
radio mic and threw it at the dashboard in disgust. Both women kicked open
their car doors, stripped to fighting gear, buckled comm sets on their heads, and
climbed back in the vehicle. DiMarco slammed it into gear and they sped up the
hill, bouncing across rutted curves that hammered an old suspension, unnoticed.
In five minutes, they were racing across the mountaintop, dust flying in a heavy
brown plume behind them.

The headsets made it easier to talk. "What do we do?" Cubby asked with
worry.

"Secure the scene," her partner snapped.

When all else fails, quote the rules. Duty never changes. No gray areas. It made
DiMarco's blood boil. It was what she trained for and lived for. Life on life's
terms, like a savage -- like a panther, claws flexed to kill. Cubby Rice drew her
primary sidearm, inspected the clip, and slammed it back. Thirty seconds.

"Recording, start," DiMarco told the headsets.

They barreled up the driveway -- two deep, rounded tracks in a sea of supple
green grass that somebody paid a fortune to irrigate. Down from the house came
two overfed Special Force men in black T-shirts, skidding on a steep incline of
concrete, Uzis slapping against their chests and waving in the air, trying to keep
their balance on loose grit. DiMarco punched the accelerator and leaned on the
horn. The two thugs hurled themselves out of the way, one of them bouncing off
the right fender, bellowing like a stuck pig that ended abruptly with a thud in the
garden below. His partner clattered face-first down the steep pavement.

The Rover soared to halt in a gravel parking lot, ramming the rear end of a black
Mercedes van, tagged City Special Force. The impact was hard enough to
shatter the back window and take the van driver out of action. He roared angrily
and emerged with the pitiful, frenetic gesticulations of a man who had just broken
his nose on a metal door frame. His gun flopped in the dirt, abandoned.

DiMarco cuffed the van driver and bullied him up the steps to the main house,
her sidearm drawn, pointed at the rough stonework. Cubby reported by radio
that the two other gunmen were in custody; one needed a doctor. "Back me up,"
DiMarco ordered. She shoved the bleeding, wailing van driver up the last step
and watched him wander blindly across a dark gray patio that was big enough to
land a chopper. The house was a sprawling hacienda, three stories tall, built in an
arc that sheltered a kidney-shaped pool. Across the pool, there was a newly
thatched, open-air ranchito with barstools and two round glass tables. A man in
Bermuda shorts and black T-shirt faced her at the pool. His name was Seldon,
chief of City Special -- and, even at twenty yards, it wasn't difficult to see that
he was murderously enraged because DiMarco had the drop on him. "Coming
up behind you," Cubby whispered by radio.

"High res, take," DiMarco replied, and their headset cameras pinged twice in
unison as they crossed the patio toward Seldon. "Put your hands up, Colonel,"
DiMarco ordered. "I have to assume that you're armed."

Cubby turned to scan the house and grounds, walking backwards in step with
DiMarco. They arrived at the poolside bar like twin porno actresses in halter
tops and thongs, one facing forward, one backward -- the whole Barbie
Baywatch floorshow. City Police T&A tactics mesmerized civilians of both
sexes, and it was choreographed to create instant crowd control. Stripped for
action, City cops carried enough firepower to level a mountain, and everybody
knew it -- including Seldon. He was busted from the instant he saw them
approach, and now, with boiling hot resentment, he raised his hands above his
head.

"We're here on official business!" Seldon spat with rage, while DiMarco
patted him down and took a gun from his belt, hidden at the small of his back.
"You're under arrest," she announced, and suddenly braced her weight against
his to whip Seldon's arms back and handcuff him. "Sit down and shut up," she
ordered.

The stuttering roar of a helicopter approached and Cubby guided them in. The
back-up team searched the hacienda, did some first aid work, and decided how
to transport the injured. The pilot was Susan Drake, an old pal. She hovered
briefly near DiMarco at the side of the pool and watched her scrape a specimen
from a patch of blood that had soaked the concrete. "Whatcha' got, Jan?" the
pilot shouted as an alternate, intimate form of greeting.

"I don't know yet," DiMarco frowned. "Nobody in the house. Special Force on
the scene, maybe ten minutes before we got here. It'll be like pulling teeth to get
them to talk, since I kicked the shit out of them without saying excuse me."
DiMarco carefully deposited the blade of scraped dust and wet blood into an
evidence bag. She marked it, signed her name, folded and sealed it shut, and
then clipped it to her belt as she rose from a low crouch to stand upright. Susan
Drake gasped involuntarily, despite an effort to hide her reaction. Lt. DiMarco
was one of the most beautiful and sexually attractive women who ever walked
on earth. It was breathtaking in a literal, physical sense to watch her move --
long, athletic thighs flexing to stand; thin, strong ankles turning effortlessly to spin
fluorescent white track shoes that matched a fighting "uniform" that was nothing
but straps and lustrous bronze skin and a badge. DiMarco smiled.

"You're staring, Susan," she chided.

The lanky blond helicopter pilot blushed beet red. "There's -- there's gonna be
trouble, Jan," she stammered in reply.

DiMarco cocked her head to the side and studied Susan Drake's face, amused.
"What kind of trouble?" she asked.

The flyer dropped her eyes and waved her hands, looking for an answer. After a
silly, cartoon battle to find the right words, Drake screwed up her courage to say
the obvious: "Jan, you kicked the shit out of those guys!"

"Didn't fire a shot, babe."

"-- I know, I know -- but they're Special Force, for fuck's sake, Janet! Have
you lost your mind? You put the whole City Police squad in jeopardy! --
because -- because you're a maniac or something!" the pilot blurted and
instantly regretted having said it.

DiMarco didn't answer. The weight of her job sagged a little on her face, and
she waited a few seconds, until a voice called for Sgt. Drake to return to the
aircraft. There wasn't any point in arguing about it. Command means
responsibility. The evidence on her belt found its way back to the crime scene
kit. It was logged and stamped. There was another patch near the bar. It got
collected and bagged and officially secured. It kept DiMarco busy another half
hour, visually scanning the bottom of the pool. It required a second look, and a
third, to establish the existence of a thin gold object near the drain that didn't
belong there.

She slipped the belt from her hip and removed her headset, noticing that Cubby
was steaming in her direction at half speed with a civilian in tow. A fat, male
citizen. The neighbor, no doubt.

"This is Kemper, next door neighbor," Cubby reported. "He heard two shots,
saw people running, and called us. Beyond that, he's a complete weenie, as far
as I can tell."

DiMarco wasn't in the mood to smile. "Tell him not to leave town," she growled,
then turned to dive, sliding effortlessly into the water. Two kicks and she was on
the tiled bottom. DiMarco opened her eyes and saw the drain; saw the glint of a
thin gold object -- a metalized plastic bow from a pair of sunglasses. With a
single push, she shot to the surface and took two short strokes to the side,
pulling herself out of the pool as easily as rising from a chair. Janet DiMarco was
an integrated, powerful animal in perfect physical condition, lightning quick, and
yet languorous and relaxed like a panther. Her thick black mane was slicked
back from the swim, rivulets racing each other in slow caress, making the image
of this woman impossible to ignore and seemingly too great to withstand. People
paled and went stupid in her presence, and DiMarco accepted it. She used it.
She relied on it, like other people rely on brute force. And the comparison was
amusing. Lt. Janet DiMarco had been reprimanded twice last year for using
"excessive and reckless force." It was allegedly holding up her promotion to
captain of Criminal Investigations, a job she didn't want. The irony made her
chuckle aloud.

"What the fuck are you laughing about?" Cubby said with a frown.

Detective Sgt. Cynthia "Cubby" Rice was probably the best police officer on the
force -- and one of the most difficult people on earth to please. If you paid her a
compliment, it pissed her off. If you criticized something she did or said, Cubby
was cut to the bone and doubly pissed off, twice as long. This limited the scope
of conversation to objective, professional matters, which only pissed Cubby off a
little, now and then. Like now. How does one explain humor?

"I wasn't laughing," DiMarco deadpanned. "I was rehearsing in case I might have
to laugh sometime in the future, if someone tells a joke."

Cubby's right cheek bounced to meet a skeptical eyebrow that squished one eye
shut, conveying the distinct comic impression that Cubby had blown a mental
fuse. "What?" she challenged, angry about not understanding something that
sounded suspiciously clever. Cubby emphatically hated sarcasm.

DiMarco shrugged. "Skip it. I was trying to be funny. I won't do it ever again, I
promise. Take a look at this. Found it on the bottom of the pool."

Cubby squinted at the object. "Chinese," she declared. "Five years old. Clean
snap, probably sudden impact." She carefully examined the curved end of the
bow. "There's a layer of hardened sebaceous oil," she observed. "Might be
enough to attempt a DNA profile. What else you got?"

"Two blood stains that don't make sense."

"What do you mean?"

DiMarco gestured to follow. Halfway from the pool to the patio bar, they could
see both patches, glistening dark red in blazing noon sun. "These weren't
simultaneous events," DiMarco explained. She pointed at the splatter near the
pool. "I make the killer here, victim standing at the pool, or maybe just getting
out, or whatever. Round splashes, almost no inertia. Now look over at the bar.
Those streaks are pointing the wrong way. The shooter had to be there --
twenty feet closer to the house. Either we have two shooters, or some kind of
drama that played out slowly. What did the neighbor say about timing of the
shots?"

"Slow. Bang... Bang."

DiMarco nodded. "Makes sense. Bang -- first victim at the pool, a surprise. But
there's a bigger surprise, because someone else shoots the first shooter. We
need to do a GP-radar and magnetic sweep, Cubby. There should be a very big
slug somewhere thataway. Probably buried. Fifty, sixty yards or more."


Chapter 2: Brainy Butt

"No bodies? You think you have two dead, but they left the scene before you
got there? -- Maybe the victims got tired of waiting for you two bimbos to show
up, and they walked home in protest."

Cubby couldn't decide whether to be insulted, or to respond with compassion,
because Captain Russell was clearly nuts. Her indecision gave DiMarco another
chance to speak first. "They were transported," she affirmed.

"Involuntarily?"

DiMarco nodded. "Yes, Captain. Two dead people."

Captain Russell shook her head with contempt, rearranging papers on her desk
as if this case deserved no further consideration by a serious person. "Don't be
silly, DiMarco. You're making a mountain out of a molehill. They could have
been injured -- not killed. Got in a car and left. If we get any report of gunshot
wound being treated, you can follow it up and see where it leads, if it'll make you
feel better. But I doubt very much that you're working a murder case."

DiMarco changed the topic. "Why was Seldon there, faster than Metro
dispatch? What does Special Force have to do with an unoccupied, locked
hacienda? The quitclaim went to an anonymous trust two years ago. Who
controls the trust? -- Seldon, probably."

Police Capt. Audrey Russell slammed a pencil down, hard enough to rap her
own knuckles. "One more word out of you about Special Force, and you're
suspended for a week without pay. I mean it, DiMarco. You lay off --
understand? I'm fed up with this shit. Today was the last fucking time I go to bat
for you. If you don't care about your career on this force, believe me -- I do! --
and I'm not going to let you fuck up an entire division under my command.
Nobody is irreplaceable on my team, understand? Get out of my office, both of
you!"

The glare was visceral and real, not much doubt that Capt. Russell meant every
word of it. The two detectives had brains, experience, and brute physical power
-- but it meant nothing at Headquarters or in court. The gap was an old grudge,
long past the stage of reasoned discussion among comrades and equals.

DiMarco didn't flinch. "Do whatever you have to do, Audrey. I say it was
double murder -- and unless you take my shield, I'm in charge of homicide --
so, with all due respect, fuck off. Let's go, Cubby." That brought Capt. Russell
out of her chair like a rocket, hurling insults and threats. DiMarco slammed the
door on the way out, to shut up the tirade -- which was like throwing gasoline
on a fire. Capt. Russell yanked the door open and bellowed a new set of threats
that echoed down the corridor, stopping traffic in both directions. It was
becoming an unfunny gag, a bad movie she saw too many times. Report to
headquarters, fuck up the chain of command, and leave with everybody staring
at Janet DiMarco -- superbitch.

Cubby liked explosions, the louder the better. DiMarco hated them, did every
thing possible to avoid conflict, but it seemed to follow her like an evil dog that
wouldn't go away, no matter what she did or said.

They drove back to the hacienda and examined every scrap of evidence that the
forensics team had turned up, after twenty-four hours of combing the mountain
estate. A steel-jacketed slug was the main attraction.

"Put that down, you idiot!"

Old Brainy Butt wheeled into view, waddling as fast as her two ham-sized piano
legs could carry her. She had a butt as big as Chicago, and she was the best
forensic scientist this side of Panama. DiMarco thrived in her company and
thought of her as a much-loved friend, whose real name was Julie Levine. "Old
Brainy Butt" publically hated DiMarco's guts and refused to look her in the eye
when they met from time to time. It was easier than facing the pain of a hopeless,
unrequited passion. Love was a closed subject, a non-fact to Dr. Levine.

DiMarco smiled wrily and thunked the plastic evidence bag down on the table,
more or less in the same position she found it. "Yes, ma'am. Certainly, ma'am.
Don't want to piss off the Pope of Dog Poop," she said with mock sincerity.

"How do you know I found dog poop?" Brainy Butt demanded.

DiMarco spread her hands in submission. "Bad guesswork by a detective."

Brainy Butt harrumphed, "Well, you're correct." She tossed an evidence sack on
the far end of the table, demonstrating the kind of skillfulness of mind and body
that geniuses possess in abundance. "One pile of Rottweiler shit," she dictated to
an evidence clerk. "About three days old, with obvious soil marks and human
footprints indicating that it was fed and watered several times in the past week.
Someone used the first floor of the house. Probably two someones.
Undoubtedly male."

Cubby barked, "Any more blood evidence?"

"No, there is not, Sergeant Cornflake," the heavyweight crone chided her,
"and you will please put a sock in it, unless spoken to. Come with me."

The two detectives ambled along, trying not to stumble in the unfamiliar gait of
escorting a slow person. Brainy Butt picked up her skirt and staggered up three
expansive white concrete steps at the front door of the hacienda. A uniformed
girl stepped aside and saluted.

"Don't walk on the floor," Brainy Butt grumbled, and they carefully shuffled along
a ribbon of plastic that ringed the gigantic living room. Two technicians were
dusting methodically for footprints.

"In here --"

The guest bathroom was draped with plastic and paper tags. Every inch had
been examined microscopically. "Someone shaved, shit, used the shower," Chief
Scientist Levine reported. "Dark brown beard, not too heavy. Probably a young
man, twenty or twenty-five, caucasian. But I think he had a visitor. Look at this."
She wagged a fat finger at the dusted mirror. Near the bottom of the glass, there
was a white grease pencil circle. "Shaving lather splash. Our principal occupant
used an electric shaver. Doe No. 2 used a razor and foam. Different hair color.
Darker, tougher beard, probably an older man."

DiMarco nodded. "Can you identify them?" she asked.

"Not today," Brainy Butt answered. "What else do you want to see?"

"What else have you got?"

"Nothing."

They trundled back along the plastic runway, DiMarco in the lead, Cubby and
Brainy Butt waltzing at a slower pace. "What about this --?" Cubby challenged,
indicating the painstaking powder work being done on the living room floor.

"Pointless exercise," Levine coughed, "but useful for training purposes."

The box that Brainy Butt carried on a strap across her chest suddenly pealed an
alarm. A young female voice reported, "Dr. Levine, this is Jessica. I found what
looks like a shallow grave, two hundred yards from the garage on the service
road."

"Don't touch anything!" Brainy Butt bellowed -- and she sprang to lead them
at a gallop around the hacienda and down a sloping pathway. When she wanted
to, Dr. Levine could run. Nothing got her going faster than a corpse. DiMarco
had tried to talk her out of it, because Brainy Butt was always exhausted and
flushed after two minutes of physical exertion -- badly compromised arterial
blood flow -- but it was hopeless to lecture Brainy Butt on the subject of health
care. "I am not interested in your medical opinions, young lady," she huffed
repeatedly a couple years ago, until DiMarco got the message. What Dr. Julie
Levine did with her life was Dr. Julie Levine's decision. End of discussion.
DiMarco retaliated by calling her "Brainy Butt" -- occasionally to her face, in
private, provided there weren't any throwable objects within reach. Ten years of
friendship and mutual respect entitles dignified people to insult one another
occasionally, like competitive siblings in the family of Woman.

"Here, Julie --" DiMarco offered, when Brainy Butt collapsed to a stagger. "Let
me walk with you the rest of the way."

Brainy Butt leaned heavily on DiMarco's arm and growled, short of breath: "I'll
kill that airhead, if she moves one single atom of that scene!" It was about 100
yards away. DiMarco saw Jessica Cutler and a male assistant spool out a yellow
tape barrier. A technician was trotting toward them from the opposite direction,
bringing a case of supplies and hand tools. Cubby took charge, circling the crime
scene like a sheepdog and forcing everyone to stand more or less at attention,
while Brainy Butt limped the remaining distance.

"Give me that!" Dr. Levine growled at the technician, grabbing the square black
evidence case from him and sliding it toward the mound of earth at the side of
the road. The light that filtered through the trees doppled this section of forest
with a restless, shifting pattern of color. If they hadn't been searching for it, no
one would have noticed what happened here at the fringe of a thick jungle about
thirty-one hours ago. Another few days, it might have been buried in vines, or
demolished by hungry pissotes. Brainy Butt dragged the evidence case to the
side of the road, two meters from the grave, and sat down on it. Her rapid-fire
mind dictated a long protocol of investigation that began with a search of the
roadway in both directions, looking for soft, moist spots that might have tire
impressions. DiMarco and Cubby assisted in the search, working their way back
to the estate's garage building. Nothing. Dry and dusty gravel.

The detectives returned and hung around the grave scene for about ten minutes,
watching attentively. "Beat it, you two," Brainy Butt ordered. "I'll call you in four
or five hours, when we dig up and examine the body. Cutler! -- get the lights
down here and set up a recorder."

DiMarco and her partner shuffled back to their car, got in, and stared at nothing
for a couple seconds. "Dinner?" DiMarco asked. Cubby nodded okay.

It took half an hour to drive down the mountain and hit the main road to Nosara.
Cubby turned her head and regarded DiMarco quizzically as they drove past the
usual spot for dinner. The Rover rattled through traffic from one side of town to
the other -- to the squeaky-clean, manicured streets of Atlantis, lined with cafes
and dress shops, car dealers and banks. At Fifth Avenue, the 4x4 chugged into a
private parking lot and DiMarco switched off the ignition.

"Are you insane?" Cubby inquired hotly.

"Yep," DiMarco replied. "Let's go, partner."

In the old days, the joint would have been called a "tittie bar." Heavy money
changed the language. Now, it was a gentlemen's club. Members paid
twenty-one grand to join -- if they were invited to join. The city's wealthiest
brokers and financiers controlled who got invited to do what, and the Blackjack
Club was no exception. If you were a good boy, you went to pig heaven.

"Janet -- No! --" shouted Detective Sergeant Rice at ear-splitting volume,
but DiMarco was already out of the vehicle. Cubby wrenched her door open
and yelled loud enough to marshal a riot squad. "Damn it, DiMarco, you are
not going in there!" -- and when she caught sight of DiMarco ripping off her
uniform shirt and stowing it in the car, Cubby Rice stopped shouting. Sudden
silence is the signature of implacable resolve, unwilling to tolerate the intolerable.

Rice strode to DiMarco's side. Her hand shot out and grabbed DiMarco's wrist,
freezing it in space -- permanently, if necessary.

DiMarco's wide-set, deep brown eyes locked her partner's fierce blue gaze in a
physical standoff. "You are not going in that club," Cubby told her. "I'm sick of
this shit. Sick of sticking my neck out beyond the call of duty. I'll tell you one last
time, Janet. This is a partnership. When you suddenly decide to do something
bizarre like this -- barging into Seldon's private club, just to raise hell -- not
only are you being stupid, you asshole -- you're treating me like a fucking
servant, who you think you can order around. No! -- not a 'servant' -- you
think I'm a fucking shield, or cannonfodder! -- expendable, when the shit goes
down!"

DiMarco frowned. "That's not tr --" she tried to answer.

In one uninterrupted motion, Cubby tossed DiMarco's wrist away with disgust,
turned and walked back around the car. "Get in!" she boomed. "Put your
fuckin' shirt on, and take me home. This shift is over. It was over two hours
ago." She slammed the car door as a final sonic punctuation, and sat there, in the
front passenger seat -- her "side" of the car -- shunning DiMarco's existence.

Janet hated these blow-ups.

But Cubby was probably right. She never blew her top like this -- all the way to
going "on strike" -- if she wasn't right about something important and basic. The
physical crush of moral condemnation hit DiMarco like a pile of bricks pressing
on her heart from all sides. She suddenly realized that she was standing in public
half naked, and she quickly pulled on her uniform again.

"I'm sorry," DiMarco said as she got in the car and started it. Her partner did not
reply. She was unwilling to listen or speak for the rest of the journey. When
DiMarco made an especially candid, diplomatic overture, Detective Sgt. Rice
cut it off with five curt words: "Don't explain -- just grow up." When they
arrived at Cubby's apartment building, she got out, let the car door slam, and
walked away from the vehicle without comment or eye contact.

DiMarco was in the doghouse, period.

The rumble and clatter of an old engine vibrated through the car door and the
hard rubber weatherstrips that captured the door window, jostling DiMarco's
forearm rather painfully. The pain seemed proportionate to the thick sense of
shame that DiMarco felt in every bone of her body. Well -- every bone from the
waist up, anyway. The rest of her was saying let's get these track shoes off and
live a little.

Cubby's tantrums were like signposts in the wilderness. Rome, thataway. Hell
two clicks straight ahead, if you don't watch your step, sister!

Hmm. It wasn't much fun being beaten by Sergeant Cornflake. Second smartest
in her class. Smart enough to kick my butt. That makes me no better than third
smartest in an Academy program that I didn't have to finish, because Mommy
Dearest was a circuit judge. Shit.

Janet DiMarco was her own worst critic. She hid this fact from everyone else in
her universe -- from Cubby and Brainy Butt in particular -- but it could not be
hidden from herself. She hated being alone, hated being "in the doghouse," cut
off from her partner's rock-solid support. She hated going home, alone. It was
nothing more than a closet, a place to throw clothes in a pile.

It was too early to sleep and she was too burdened to eat. Her gun and car keys
slid to a stop on the kitchen table, jammed against a laptop with dead batteries.
The shoes came off, lazily abandoned on the floor. Socks were halfheartedly
thrown at a laundry pile, for the maid to deal with tomorrow. DiMarco leaned on
the breakfast counter and sulked. She was intensely tired. Tired of living. Tired
of police work. Well -- not that tired -- not with the case, anyway. It was a
great case. The kind of case a detective gets only once or twice in a career.

She stood up and ripped her uniform off, everything in a pile, including the tight,
stupid jock strap that nobody liked and every field officer had to wear. It made
perfect sense, from a tactical point of view -- but it itched like hell in hot
weather and chafed when it got wet and sticky in the rainy season. Every cop on
the force scratched herself when she got home and undressed. This naturally led
to a hot shower. DiMarco flipped on the stereo -- tough, meaty Benatar -- her
music, her world. It thundered through DiMarco's ancient high-ceilinged
loft in downtown Nosara on the wrong side of Nosara International -- the old
section of town, where you could drink, smoke, and raise hell as loud as you
wanted to, twenty-four hours a day. At sundown, neon painted the loft from a
row of dirty windows that faced "B" Street -- two separate fires of iridescent
red and fatal blue, like a carnival.

Showering was a mechanical routine. Felt good to touch herself, to explore and
rejoice -- but it happened in some other galaxy, and DiMarco couldn't
remember if she had washed her hair. It was wet -- probably clean -- yep, the
shampoo bottle had changed position and she vaguely remembered using it.
When her mind was hyperactive, engaged on a case, physical reality seemed
remote. She stepped out and rubbed herself with a thick dry towel. She stomped
to the kitchen, found a cold steak that the maid had cooked for her, ignored the
salad, slammed the refrigerator shut, and began to pace, gnawing the meat
occasionally. On her third circuit of pacing, she reopened the fridge and got a
glass of lemonade.

Back and forth, maybe twenty times, from the farthest corner of the loft, around
the sofa and chairs, down the hallway to the bathroom and back again -- more
than 80 yards roundtrip. DiMarco had a big stride. There was never enough
room to pace, when she was thinking.

Cigarettes didn't make the room any bigger, but it gave her something to do, a
way of forestalling despair, if she lost the thread of detection. She grabbed a
flashlight and juggled it in one hand without looking while she paced, tossing it a
foot or two in the air and absentmindedly catching its predictable heft with
effortless synchronicity, no matter which way it was thrown. After a while, it was
thrown in a chair and the pacing continued.

The phone finally rang. DiMarco realized that she had deliberately and rather
idiotically drained her body of energy, waiting for this call. Brainy Butt was curt
and reserved. "Male, approximately age 20, more or less fits Doe No. 1 in the
house. Don't bother me until I call you late tomorrow morning. Agreed?"

"Okay," DiMarco nodded. "Thanks."

There was nothing else to say, so she put the phone down. It felt like the last bit
of strength she had. Five minutes later, DiMarco was snoring on the sofa. An
hour later, shivering and naked, she found her way to the bedroom, turned back
a tightly-made bed, cursed the maid, turned on the radio, and crawled in -- to
fight her way back to emptiness, to stupidness, anything except the electrifying
facts and hypotheses of the Hacienda Case. Eventually, she succeeded in sleep,
by virtue of mental exhaustion, too tired to dream.


Chapter 3: Jesus Christ

It was a bad idea to disturb Judge Elizabeth Crowley before 10 a.m., but that
didn't stop DiMarco. "Routine search warrant, Your Honor," she shrugged
indifferently -- as if an unscheduled ex parte application in chambers at 9 a.m.
was something that happened daily, like taking out the trash.

Judge Crowley frowned. "Sit down, Lieutenant," she ordered gruffly. Janet
DiMarco ranked somewhere between juvenile delinquent and hardened gangster
in Judge Crowley's opinion. Why DiMarco remained on the force was a mystery
that no one in Laissez Faire City Court understood. She was incorrigible and
rough. If DiMarco wasn't stupid, she acted stupidly and irresponsibly. Her
testimony in a case was practically worthless, because defense attorneys threw
the regulation book at her. Her personnel record was 150,000 lines long --
most of it citizen complaints and shooting investigations. DiMarco wasn't just a
loose cannon. She was a loose battleship. Powerful and dangerous.

Judge Crowley gently stroked three fingers of her left hand across a wrinkled
brow and tried to make sense of what the documents factually presented about
the case. It was a homicide investigation. They had one corpse and were looking
for another. It happened at the Triple Peak estate, which was unoccupied and
deeded to a trust in San Jose. DiMarco wanted a blanket search warrant, to be
served on banks, communication companies, the City Assessor, and anyone else
who might know who owned the estate. On its face, this seemed reasonable --
certainly within the Code of Criminal Procedure and specifically upheld by City
Circuit case law -- but Judge Crowley squirmed at the concept of giving
DiMarco a blanket search warrant. It was like handing her a nuclear bomb.

"Denied," Crowley announced. She signed the warrant, in the space provided to
deny the requested order, and tossed it across the desk to DiMarco. "You'll
have to try somebody else," the judge said, dismissing her. Crowley sternly
analyzed DiMarco's face and held her gaze for several seconds. "You have
anything else to say to this court, Lieutenant?" she challenged.

"No, Your Honor," DiMarco said evenly -- then turned to leave. On the street,
she jaywalked through traffic and yanked her car door open, tossing the dead
writ in the back seat. Cubby unwound enough to be curious.

"Did she grant it?"

"No."

Cubby clenched her cheek and exercised her face muscles in a liquid, circular
rhythm of animated pondering. Cubby wasn't mad; she was thinking -- which
was perfectly fine with her partner, because DiMarco was out of ideas and sat
slumped in the driver's side like a grumpy rag doll. Cubby chugged at the pace of
exactly two ideas per minute. Her first idea was Judge Timmerman -- but
Cubby immediately overruled her own suggestion, when she remembered the
Ross murder trial. Timmerman threatened to jail them both for contempt, two
years ago. Judges have long memories about contempt warnings. Cubby
noodled another thirty seconds. "I've got it," she announced. "Nobody reads a
search warrant. It has a signature on it, looks like the real thing, except it says
'denied' in microscopic print. Fuck it -- let's use it," Rice concluded.

The rag doll in the driver's seat rolled her eyes at Sergeant Cornflake to see if
Cubby was covered in purple polka-dots or some other symptom of lunacy. But
no, she was serious. Cubby looked her in the eye. "We might as well, Janet," she
affirmed with calm certainty. "You have a couple of days before the killer or
killers cover up as tight as a drum. In fact, the trust is probably rearranging all the
legal furniture while we're sitting here. If we're going to catch anybody, it has to
be today. That's what I think, anyway."

DiMarco sat up and started the car. Ten minutes later, they parked at the City
Assessor's office. Cubby flashed the warrant and they got what they needed.
The sham was repeated at two corporate offices, a church, an accounting firm,
and a retreat for yoga enthusiasts. The trust held an amazing portfolio of property
-- and no one knew who owned any of it. Gold-denominated checks arrived
from Luxembourg every month, paid the overheads and employees. A tall,
wobbley sheaf of photocopies slipped and slid from the back seat of the Rover
when they stopped for lunch at a cheap joint in Nosara. Now they had evidence
in a messy pile, out of order, on the floor. "Fuck it, I'm hungry," Cubby
announced. "I'll straighten it out later. It's your turn to buy."

They had just paid the bill for lunch, plus a $20 tip for scaring away the regular
customers, when Brainy Butt buzzed the private phone that DiMarco carried on
her belt. They agreed to meet at the hospital lab in fifteen minutes. En route,
Cubby perceived DiMarco's mental agitation and guessed what was bothering
her. There were only so many hours in a day. There was too much to do.

"You go ahead and meet with Julie," she offered. "I'll take the car and finish the
leg work. I can read whatever she has to say tonight at home -- or buzz me, if
it's something important."

"Okay," DiMarco nodded. "Thanks."

That funny chill was still there, like a third entity in the car, and Janet wished that
she could think of something to say to Cubby -- to let her know that she was
important and valued. Really valuable. Personally important. But there weren't
any words that captured what DiMarco felt. After ten years of partnership, you
don't thank someone you work with. It's like trying to thank yourself for waking
up in the morning and being the same person who went to sleep the night before.
Shit -- why is love so hard to talk about? DiMarco understood it well enough.
Everybody "loved." It was simple. You value the people you respect and depend
on. Cubby was the best police officer on the force. Tough, brilliant, fearless. She
did the paperwork, because DiMarco was lazy and it got postponed or fucked
up, unless Cubby took care of it. Cubby covered her butt a thousand times.
DiMarco needed her as a partner and friend. But how to say it, without sounding
mushy?

Cubby slid into the driver's seat and pulled away, leaving DiMarco standing on
the broad sweep of pavement at the main entrance of Atlantis Medical Center.
Whatever Janet DiMarco wanted to say to her partner, it was too late now. The
moment had come and gone, like a puff of smoke that dissolved and
disappeared in a much bigger universe. Civilian pedestrians were making sudden
detours to avoid walking anywhere in front of or behind Officer DiMarco --
some of them walking half a block out of their way to cross the street at the next
intersection, just to be on the safe side. Wearing a badge scattered people for no
reason, and DiMarco was accustomed to it. But it was a drag to walk alone.
That's why she needed Cubby. It was impossible to face this job without a
partner, somebody to walk with, in exile from the rest of humanity.

She shrugged and made her way to the entrance. There was some stupidity at
the doorway, men catching sight of her and back-pedalling to crash into glass
panels and each other -- women saying "Oh!" as if they'd seen a death's head.
DiMarco pushed her way through without perceiving individuals, just animated
objects that she scattered around with simple gestures. Chaos spread down a
hospital corridor, everybody stopping to stare or colliding blindly because they
weren't watching where their headless bodies were walking. For the millionth
time, DiMarco grimly validated her freakdom. It was no longer a vague suspicion
or an upsetting embarrassment. It was simple cause and effect, like getting wet in
a rainstorm. People scattered and went stupid, because DiMarco was a freak, a
metaphysical oddity. The bitch warrior. Not even a person. Just a machine.
Somebody who lived an oath, to protect and serve.

She strode two paces into Brainy Butt's office and halted. There was a tall guy in
a lightweight powder blue suit. Mid-thirties, well-built, a professional of some
kind. He looked up from the document he was reading.

"Jesus Christ!" he whispered, seeing something in DiMarco's face.

"What?" she queried -- expecting to be told that her nose was bleeding, or that
she had ketchup on her chin from a goopy cheeseburger and fries. DiMarco
patted her hand over her face and inspected the fingers. Nope. No ketchup.

The man reached to touch her elbow and slouched a little, so that DiMarco was
forced to stare at him. His eyes sparkled blue and green and ochre, like a
kaleidoscope. "Marry me," he told her. "We'll have children."

DiMarco backed out of his aura, away from his touch. "Sure!" she spat at no
one in particular, feeling angry. "Get real, asshole. Where's Dr. Levine?"

The suave son of a bitch just smiled.

DiMarco raised her voice. "I asked you a question, buster. What are you doing
in this office?"

He shook his head. "Whatever it was, I don't think it matters now," he replied in
deep, calm voice that was almost resigned. Then he became wistful and happy,
part kid and part ancient, speaking with all of his years and the years to come.
"You're absolutely beautiful, DiMarco," he confided to her as a new friend.

"How do you know who I am?" she demanded hotly.

He pointed at her chest. "It's on your name tag."

"Oh."

"A beautiful name."

"Thanks."

"But it'll be a lot better when it's Kellogg."

"What are you talking about?"

He moved past her -- a confident stride that slowed imperceptibly to speak
confidentially at her left ear, about to confess something. "That's what happens
when people get married," he whispered. "A wife takes her husband's surname.
In our case, it's going to be Kellogg -- as in cereal." He briefly inclined his head,
as if they now shared a secret, and then sauntered over to a small desk near the
door, vaguely pretending to look about, to see if their conversation had been
overheard by spies or unscrupulous newspaper reporters.

DiMarco blinked. She watched him pick up a medical bag and fuss with some
papers, preparing to leave the room. He was humming! -- a lilting, self-amused
"Hmm-hhm-mm-mn-mmm" -- like a fucking cat who just ate a canary!
DiMarco's rage welled up from a source that she did not know she possessed.
She was ready to wallop him -- not in the line of duty -- but for personal,
individual revenge!

"Who the fuck do you think you are, mister?" she bellowed, crossing the floor
to confront him, both fists clenched at her side, resisting the impulse. He smiled
brightly and offered his business card. "Harmon Kellogg, M.D. -- at your
service," he said cheerfully. "Day or night. Unmarried."

DiMarco snatched the card from his long, outstretched fingers and waved it at
him like a traffic ticket. "Let's get something straight between us, right this minute,
Kellogg," she growled. "If you ever -- ever! -- pull this kind of bullshit on me
again, I will beat your ass to a pulp. Understand me?"

Dr. Kellogg listened carefully to every word, nodded in acknowledgment, and
replied with genuine goodwill. "Yes, dear. I understand."

DiMarco's jaw dropped and her huge brown eyes opened to bulge, showing the
entire white of her eyes like high-pressure sodium searchlights at full intensity.
For a fraction of an instant, she stood speechless at the office door, beaten at the
game of intimidation. Suddenly, a hefty paw shoved her from behind, driving her
chest into Kellogg's -- and Julie Levine's voice yelled at her to get the hell out of
the doorway, god damn it!

Kellogg didn't react, pretended not to notice, and the electricity ended when
DiMarco stepped back. What they shared became a secret he would not divulge
-- and she saw that he could be trusted to keep his word. It all happened very
fast.

"Finished, Kellogg?" Brainy Butt harrumphed, not looking at them, tossing
paperwork in piles and maneuvering behind a crowded desk to sit in the chair
that she normally occupied fourteen or fifteen hours a day. When Julie Levine
looked up, Kellogg answered from the door and DiMarco was staring at him.

"Yes. Transcript on your screen. Nothing unusual. Aside from being shot with a
high-powered rifle." Kellogg turned to DiMarco and queried: "It is unusual to be
shot with a high-powered rifle -- right? Most people use handguns."

Janet DiMarco's face fell. She tried to nod yes. Kellogg smiled, wished them
both a good day, and walked out the door.

Brainy Butt frowned. "What's the matter with you?" she demanded.

DiMarco turned and blinked. "What do you mean?"

"Are you all right? You look like you're sick."

"No -- I'm fine."

"You're sure?"

"Uh-huh," DiMarco nodded.

"Well --?" prompted Brainy Butt.

"Well what?"

Dr. Levine thumped a heavy forearm and outstretched hand on the top of her
desk, for effect. "I presume that you're still employed as a detective! Are you
here on business -- or --"

-- and then Brainy Butt understood. DiMarco was coming out of a trance, came
back to planet Earth, hard as nails and ready to study the evidence. She began
to think in questions, always in the right order, saving time. Her mind leapt inside
the crime scene -- piecing together each frame of a movie, out of sequence, not
very clear or focussed yet -- but emerging with greater precision every minute,
determined to know why this boy had been shot to death and by whom.

Levine became grouchy, wanted rid of her. After two more questions -- details
about the victim's identity -- Brainy Butt became rude, irate. "God damn it, I
have better things to do than save you the trouble of reading my report! Get out
of here and leave me alone!" For the first time, DiMarco heard genuine wrath in
Julie Levine's voice, after ten years of friendship. Not understanding it, she
accepted the possibility that she had somehow insulted Julie, without realizing
that it had happened. She mumbled an apology and left the room, feeling taller
and stronger than usual, as if her body had been amplified by a cause that she
remembered only as a distant echo. Halfway down the corridor, the echo had a
name and a face. It was Kellogg. She halted suddenly and stood there
wondering about herself, perceiving a new mystery. It poked through a crack in
the hard black clay of Janet DiMarco's karma, daring her to follow.


Chapter 4: An Officer of the Court

DiMarco stared at nothing. If she was moving, she didn't feel it. Random,
disconnected trivia floated in and out of focus, nothing quite real. I'll have to tell
someone about the Rover. The front end is falling apart, she reasoned in a fog of
death -- and Lt. Janet DiMarco was the one who was dead.

Cubby had been locked up for punching Capt. Russell. Probably broke four of
Audrey's front teeth. It was as unreal as every other atom in the universe.
DiMarco's skin screamed in protest, because she was wearing civilian clothes,
hastily selected from a locker that hadn't been opened for seven months.
DiMarco felt like a zombie, a walking corpse, unfeeling, unable to cry or scream.
She had been fired.

Nothing to wonder at, she reasoned. Every City cop knows the Caveat, to serve
at the pleasure of the Chief Justice. To serve at his pleasure. All over in a half
second, just a note, a white slip of paper from the Supreme Court. What the
fuck! -- her heart screamed in agony without words, or movement, or hope of
reprieve. It was a professional death sentence. Audrey took her badge and gun.
Then Cubby walked in on them. Russell should've had enough sense to send
Cubby out on some assignment or other -- anything to get her out of the
building, while DiMarco got the white slip, the last thing a cop gets when it's
over. She'll never work again.

DiMarco looked down at her hand, and her fingers opened to reveal a crumpled
page that had killed everything she loved, everything she knew about life. The
Great Seal of the City stared up at her with icy blue finality. DiMarco pledged
her life -- and it had been taken, in an instant.

"Miss Janny?" inquired an old, mellow voice.

She looked up, unable to speak. It was Maurice, her father's chauffeur, standing
a few feet from a white Mercedes limo, hat in hand. As a child, she rode with
Maurice to and from school, to and from family outings in Guanacaste. Maybe
DiMarco really was dead, and this was part of some spectral transit -- to
glimpse old, gray-haired Maurice through a haze of acrid heat. She hadn't seen
him for over a dozen years.

"Miss Janny?" he repeated, this time with worry. "You alright?"

Tears preceded painful waves of clenched cheeks, eyes, chin and lips. She bent
and bellowed and fell to the ground -- caught by her old friend's grasp, saving
her from injury on the concrete -- and then she choked on her own saliva and
tears. Maurice lifted her and helped her to breathe, with a gentle thump at the
right moment, helping her to cough. She was still a child to him; he held her
tenderly like a grandfather, whose cherished innocent had never changed in 38
years of life. When she could stand and walk again, Maurice helped her to the
car, a scene cut from distant childhood and pasted into the helpless present.
Then he rounded the car, got behind the wheel, and drove her away from Police
Headquarters, slow and sure-footed and heavy. The armored limo was a rolling
bunker of silence and security. Janet cried again, and fell again, this time caught
safely by the cool strength of soft, strong upholstery -- a snug embrace that was
deliberately designed to protect something as frail as an elderly princess or a
precious child. It was her father's wish that she always be protected and safe, no
matter what. Her mother had been killed by an assassin. It was her father that
she defied by joining the City Police. It was her father who was reclaiming her
now, in defeat and disgrace, after Janet had somehow crossed the line. She
never knew where that hazy thin border might be -- the line between duty and
cunning. In the beginning, it didn't matter. Most other cops struggled with the rule
book and ignored it on the street, because they had to. Now, it was too late to
wonder who was right, or wrong, or why, or about what. The Chief Justice had
determined officially that she was unfit to serve. In a few minutes, they would
arrive at the Courthouse, probably for a personal verdict from his dry, brown
lips. For all the world, Janet DiMarco wanted out of this hell of expectation. But
the dead have nothing to say about their fate, no way to resist. The warm mound
of the cushioned car seat held her fast. The air conditioned vehicle was a gliding
cell, and its powerful engine pulled them uphill to the City Courthouse. Guards
saluted like dominoes in a long row. Only one car had the privilege of driving
straight through the gate. It swung to a halt at the Supreme Court plaza. In his
familiar, gentle, plodding way, Maurice calmly opened his door and walked to
her side of the car.

"He wants to see you, Miss Janny," their old servant explained.

DiMarco nodded. She looked at herself like an alien companion, trying to figure
out if the alien's clothing was straight or crooked, buttoned where it was
supposed to be buttoned -- a small child who sometimes forgot the details of
decorum. Then the grown-up woman shook her head to clear it. Rumpled shirt
and jeans. Barefoot. It was not decorous. Couldn't be.

Maurice remained with the car, and DiMarco forced herself to walk to the main
corridor. She was known here -- too well known. Doors were opened solemnly
for her, without challenge or comment, as they had been for more than twenty
years, ever since the day that Janny turned eighteen and her father was
appointed to the Court... GOOD GOD, SAVE ME FROM THIS! I DON'T
WANT TO FACE HIM! I CAN'T!...

Dorothy Chappel rose from her desk, neither smiling nor stern, and opened the
door of her father's private office. Old burnished copper marked the border between
those who live under law and those who make it. She was entering the Office of
the Chief Justice of Laissez Faire Supreme Court -- the guardian and citadel of
a great nation's conscience. Mr. Chief Justice DiMarco was behind a desk that
she knew to be his, had been his for twenty years. The City Attorney, standing at
her father's side, turned to watch her enter. Sitting in one of the leather armchairs
in front of her father's desk, the back of a closely-cropped blond head
undoubtedly belonged to Col. Emmett W. Seldon. Her cloud of despair parted
for an instant, and Janet mentally snorted in contempt. Her asshole ex-husband,
chief of City Special, had orchestrated her dismissal from the force, no doubt, the
fucking bastard. He sat there like a rock, refusing to acknowledge her existence.

Her father's voice was characteristically empty of emotion. It sounded like
Daddy always sounded -- like a big, baritone robot.

"Janet," Mr. Chief Justice DiMarco stated, "I'm sorry it had to be handled this
way. Please sit down. For legal reasons, we couldn't have you continue your
investigation of the Triple Peak case as a police detective -- nor could we
disclose it to anyone else on the force or allow it to become known publicly that
the City has a difficult political, perhaps military problem. Please sit down,
Lieutenant. Thank you. Do you understand what I've been saying?"

"No. I don't."

Cleve Barrymore, the City Attorney, cleared his throat, begging permission to
interrupt. "Janet, you haven't been dismissed because of anything you did wrong.
You got the white slip because we need you for another assignment." Cleve's
firm, strong voice seemed unreal to her. They had fought like cats and dogs for a
decade. DiMarco never once heard C.A. Cleve Barrymore, during all the years
they worked together, address her as anything other than a danger to public
safety. The sudden transformation got her attention. He was treating her like a
valued colleague, full of care and respect.

"What did you say, Mr. Barrymore?" she stammered.

He spread his hands in a gesture of embarrassment. "We need you for a special
job, connected to what you've been calling the Triple Peak Hacienda Murders.
The boss wants you to serve as a special investigator for my office and... um...
work with City Special."

Janet's fiery intelligence erupted with a bang. Her eyes lit up, and her spine
snapped straight, the powerful thrust of a living machine, suddenly ignited. Deep
from her belly, the sound of anger rose to her open throat and careened from the
four walls like a shock wave. "What!?" she boomed in contempt.

City Special was exempt, omnipotent -- the palace guard of LFCity's Executive
-- no different in mission or legal status than the CIA. They had a license to kill,
and they used it, sometimes daily. Spy shit. It was everything that her
ex-husband loved, and everything that Det. Lt. Janet DiMarco hated and fought
against, for ten straight years. If she had a gun in her hand at this moment, she
wouldn't hesitate to shoot the bastard, rather than work for him, or with him, or
spend another second in any conference he attended. DiMarco's keen intuition
could feel Seldon seething with bottled rage, practically vibrating the chair in
which he was sitting. Their hatred was mutual, after a two-year marriage and a
bitter divorce. "It's impossible," she declared calmly.

"You won't have to work with Emmett," her father explained. "He'll stay out of it.
We've agreed that you couldn't work together, for various reasons -- one of
which is his conduct in the case." The Chief Justice turned to Seldon and drilled
him with a deadly gaze of contempt: "Explain to Lt. DiMarco why you've been
suspended," he commanded.

Seldon's jawline bulged. The rest of his muscular, perfectly toned athlete's body
remained frozen, except for a hint of tension in his voice. Seldon was always in
control. Total control. "I was suspended at 09:30 hours this morning, on direct
order of the Chief Executive. I have nothing further to say until I've had an
opportunity to discuss this matter with my attorney."

Janet scoffed. "Who's your attorney? -- Peckham's uncle?"

It produced a red glow on Seldon's cheek. Jimmy Peckham had been convicted
of murder and executed last year -- a City Special thug who Janet DiMarco
investigated and had testified against at trial, after parts of Peckham's young,
pregnant Tica wife were found floating in a tide pool at the mouth of Rio Nosara.
His uncle Niles was a notorious ambulance chaser and drunkard.

"Janet, please -" the City Attorney whispered.

"No," she answered. "Forget it. Fuck this. I'm not doing anything with or for City
Special."

Her father spoke, as always, with undisguised authority. "Yes, you will, Janet. As
Chief Justice of Laissez Faire City, I'm ordering you to take this assignment.
Your dismissal from the force meant nothing and means nothing. If you examine
that white slip carefully -- which, apparently, you did not -- it has a badly
forged signature, thanks to Dorothy, and your name was misspelled. It was a
hoax, initiated by Cleve, for national security reasons. You're still an officer of
this Court. There's no one else qualified to take this assignment. It has to be you."

Cleve Barrymore handed her a file folder and a packet of memory chips. "Here's
everything we and Special know about the case. Names of the decedents --
altogether five -- you only knew about two of them at Triple Peak. That chip is
a complete dossier on Mitchell, assistant City Clerk. He was one of those killed."

DiMarco stared at the evidence, weighing it with astonishment. Seldon's
operation had been forced to turn over everything they had. The index listed
dossiers on everyone in the Executive Branch, from the Chief Executive down to
the laziest part-time maid -- over 200 City employees whose identities and
activities were a carefully guarded secret. Another fat index claimed to contain
the personnel jackets of every City Special agent, past and present.

"You'll be working with an experienced investigator from the City Treasury -- I
don't think you've met him before," Barrymore explained. "I've tried to keep him
under wraps, for this very reason -- in case we had an urgent national security
problem like this."

DiMarco frowned. "Like what?"

Her father closed his eyes and shook his head slightly. "Not here. The Treasury
man will brief you privately. He's waiting in my law library. Now that you know
who authorized your new role in this investigation, you are dismissed from this
meeting and you will proceed to that private briefing immediately. Time is of the
essence."

It was an order. Nothing to be done about orders. She rose angrily, said nothing.
Three paces took her to the door of the Chief Justice's law library, and she
pulled it open like a cop, ready for anything. Except this. He was putting golf
balls into a water glass on the floor. Two of them rattled cheerfully in the glass,
before Dr. Harmon Kellogg's jewel-like eyes flashed up at her and he yielded
with a broad, confident smile of pleasure, rising to his full height, about 6' 3",
judging from the spacing of the bookshelves. He looked ridiculous, holding a
putter like it was a sword.

"Hello," he said brightly, as if she had just entered a living room, where private
life was a casual and carefree routine. "Hard day at the office, dear?"

"You!" she gaped.

"Me," he agreed -- then, with feigned confusion, added: "Or, I think it's me. I'm
fairly certain it's me." His dazzling eyes darted for a moment past her left
shoulder, speaking to someone else. "Thank you, Cleve," he noted, in time with
the sound of the door closing behind her. Now they were alone together in a
warm, walnut paneled library filled with ancient volumes of law. Beautiful leather
and cloth and paper -- the settled agreement of courageous humanity -- the law
that Janet DiMarco loved as a child and defended as a police officer. Kellogg
belonged here, she realized. He had that same quality. The good.

"Please," he gestured as a gentleman, "we should sit down. Take the couch. I've
got a chair right here for my back. I like it nice and straight -- and hard -- no
pun intended, honestly. We have a lot to talk about, as you can imagine. Shall I
begin at the beginning?"

"Okay," she dared him.

Kellogg smiled broadly, enjoying her unspoken threat. "I will be absolutely
candid with you, in everything, in every possible way, from this moment until our
golden years."

"Cut the crap," she snapped. "Get to the facts."

He nodded gravely. "Of course. My real name is Morrison. Archibald David
Morrison. 'Archie,' if you like. Perhaps this will persuade you to believe me." His
Treasury ID seemed genuine. She glanced at it and looked up at him, wondering
if the straight wooden chair that he was sitting on was a deliberate display.
DiMarco was parked deep in the leather couch, several inches below eye level,
and it was hard to avoid looking at his long legs and --

She handed back the ID, which earned another one of his clever, devious smiles.
Damn you. Just stop it! -- she wanted to scream at him. Stick to business!

He perceived it and let her perceive the fact that he knew. Seconds ticked away,
confessing all. They didn't need to speak. His warmth carried away every ill and
care, every horror and every grief for the innocent -- they were sailing together
in a new world that was safe and kind -- the happy world she knew as a child,
as seconds became a half minute or more, suspended in silence. A rare thing,
love. The unexpected and impossible, until it happens.

"Janet," he interrupted, dipping his eyes to cut the flow, "-- I have a lot to tell
you about the case."

"Did you perform that autopsy?"

"Uh... no," he grimaced, slightly ashamed.

"Then who did?"

"On the body that you...? At the...?" he pantomimed, pointing in the direction of
Medical Center, down the mountain and north of the Courthouse. "Well --
actually -- uh... no one, as far as I know," Morrison smiled stupidly. Seeing the
result on DiMarco's face, and hoping for a quick fix, he apologized: "I'm -- I'm
quite sure you're right, dear. We should have someone do that absolutely
immediately. Due process and all that. Fair enough? When you're right, you're
right. Good basis for a relationship. I mean, a working relationship. As
professionals. Uh... cops!"

Archie Morrison's fine, light gray silk suit floated over the length of his body,
caressing it every time he moved or gestured. She could see he wasn't armed,
probably didn't know a barrel from a butt. Everything about him screamed
civilian. A bookkeeper who plays golf.

DiMarco closed her eyes and drooped, exactly in the manner of someone who
has a headache. A major headache. Her nice, orderly world had suddenly gone
totally insane. She was in love with him -- and he was a complete idiot.


Chapter 5: The Fortress

Archie's Lincoln 4x4 seemed like it was gliding on air. DiMarco found herself
repeatedly glancing out the side window, checking to make sure that they were
on a dirt road. Inside Archie's car, it was 78 degrees and a clear, sharp tint of
gray, everything in comfortable focus; outside it was probably 110 in the blinding
equatorial sun at high noon.

Eric Clapton's "Stone Free" hammered the woofers with a groove that soared
through space, just like the damn car. It battered her with unfamiliarity -- not the
music, the happiness. She and Archie had spent the night at her place in Nosara.
Janet DiMarco didn't know whether to sing, or cry again, or laugh. It was a new
idea, being happy to be alive. She tilted her head and gazed at him. He smiled
without having to look at her. He knew she was there, felt everything she felt --
like when the wind on a person's face tells him which way it's blowing and how
strongly, and the smell of a thunderhead speaks volumes about what's next. They
had mixed their smell, she and Archie. His cologne on her cheek, her perfume on
his -- oh, shit, this is wonderful ...

He smiled again, the kind of smile that's supposed to be polite and isn't exactly.
If he starts humming again, I'm going to sock him, DiMarco fumed. Deep down
somewhere it rankled, that Archie had claimed her -- made her his last night.
Damn him anyway! I had a nice, sensible life before he showed up, the rat. Or
stud. Or god, or whatever he was. After 26 hours with him, DiMarco still didn't
know who he was, or how he suddenly appeared in her life. When she spoke, it
was like continuing a conversation in progress, even though they hadn't said a
word to each other for over half an hour, gliding through city traffic and then
blasting through the jungle on a road she'd never seen before, as silent as two
nuns in prayer. Now, it was Hendrix on the ten-speaker stereo, slamming big
notes in an anthem of unprovoked competence.

"Archie?"

"Yes, dear?"

"I love you."

It cracked him -- not noticeably -- just a split second, when he inhaled sharply
and pulled them through a hairpin switchback, making a controlled slide on
gravel, like flying a plane. Archie turned to her and smiled. "Don't say that too
often," he cautioned. "It might compromise my effectiveness. I'm not made of
stone, you know."

The call to duty snapped her back to reality. She turned down the music, in
order to concentrate. It was time for some answers. "Did you pick me for this
job?"

"Yes. You're the best of the best."

"My father had nothing to do with it?"

"He was against it," Archie stated simply. DiMarco realized that they had settled
into a personal agreement, a professional modus vivendi -- one that seemed
spontaneous and organic: just the facts, no funny business. Her first impression of
Archie was wildly mistaken. He was as tough as iron and held nothing back. She
wiggled a bit in the bucket seat. Damn him, my tush hurts like hell! -- and the
curse made her laugh. Her large white teeth peeked at the world for the first time
as a grown woman, and her shoulders eased deeper into real relaxation.

"Where are we going?" she asked, contentedly.

"Home to meet my ... uh ... family."

"Big family?"

Archie shrugged a little, debating what to say. "Not so big, if you consider that
there are nine billion people in the world. 'Eight billion too many,' as Sergeant
Cornflake would have it."

DiMarco's face fell, and her jaw locked. He had no business knowing that
Cubby had said that in anger, two years ago. Nobody called her 'Sgt. Cornflake'
except Julie Levine. The logic led to an important question. "How long have you
been monitoring us -- or, me?" she demanded.

A soft expression resembling a smile answered her. "A very long time," he
admitted. "Years. Ever since you were a zygote, practically speaking. I know
how much you pay your maid. By the way, you've moved. All your stuff is being
packed up today, and your maid was reassigned to something a little less
intense." He glanced from the road to lift an eyebrow at her in suspicion. "She
wasn't entirely happy working for you, you realize. Not since you stopped
eating, a couple months ago."

DiMarco frowned. "I eat," she protested.

"Uh-huh."

"I ate this morning," she insisted.

"Uh-huh."

Ooh, damn him again! DiMarco hated men fawning over her, surrogate daddies
who think they have to supervise her goddamned food intake. He'll probably
grump at me if I bump my knee on the car door -- great! -- just what I needed
-- a chauvinist, fucking patriarch for a boyfriend. Hmph. Well, there's one way
to stop that shit, and stop it fast. This is going to be a partnership.

"What's the 'national security' problem, Archie? -- and don't duck it this time --
I want the truth," she growled at the windshield, watching the forest flash past on
her side of the road.

"Oh ... that ... well... Your father tends to be a little excitable about things like
that," he shrugged.

"My father?" she quipped. The least accurate word to describe the Chief Justice
was 'excitable'. Daddy was an immovable, stone-cold Rock of Gibraltar. The most
excitement his daughter ever saw on his face was a crooked half-smile when she
graduated from law school. "Are you trying to be funny?" she challenged, locking
eyes briefly.

He held her gaze long enough to reply: "You don't know him very well, Janet."

That was a true statement. Maybe Archie knew more than she was giving him
credit for. Janet DiMarco hadn't spoken to her father for years, until yesterday
-- and that was the worst possible way to be reacquainted, getting fired and
reassigned like a foot soldier, with no hint of a personal connection between
father and daughter. DiMarco looked down at her hands, wondering what the
future might hold? Bizarrely, it occurred to her that maybe she could let her nails
grow and paint them. It had been an awful long time since she ... felt female. Her
thin cotton blouse blew gently against her breasts, caressed by a little stream of
cool air that came from the dash -- and her muscular shoulders dipped an inch
in surrender again, wanting to let go and live.

Archie switched off the music and slowed the car for no reason, until she saw a
hidden entrance. At the end of a long drive, through two open fields of brilliant
green grass, they crawled over a hillock and stopped at a gate, unlike any Janet
had seen before, but recognized at once. It was the Fortress. It had to be. The
rumors and stories she heard as a child were confirmed by an ancient crest over
a studded timber gateway that a tank would have trouble breaking.

She turned to Archie.

He grinned with his usual good cheer and pleasure in life. Nothing to be
surprised about, darling -- his sparkling eyes silently smiled. He offered his hand
in reassurance. When the gates finished their slow sway to open fully, Archie
looked ahead and his glance moved the car. DiMarco was stunned. There was
no building, no plaza behind the gated wall. They gathered speed and rolled
through a lush tropical forest that was smoothly entwined with spectacular
botanical gardens and waterfalls. Archie touched a control, lowering their car
windows to enjoy the shady breeze. Toucans and parrots yelled angrily about
being disturbed by an utterly silent car, gliding quietly along a pavement of giant
red tiles.

"I'm not supposed to be here," she worried.

Archie didn't smile. "There are exceptions to the rule," he said, as they turned
gracefully in an arc and slowed to a stop in the forecourt of a massive, stone
Tudor castle, its apparent age perhaps fifty or a hundred years -- long before
the Crisis of '15. Vines had grown thickly in the most beautiful pattern she'd ever
seen, revealing enormous effort by a large staff of gardeners. Archie opened her
door, and Janet DiMarco became -- so far as she knew -- the first woman to
ever set foot in the fabled fortress said to be the impregnable retreat of the
Knighthood. Despite her tough exterior, DiMarco's first few steps toward a
great vaulted door, shaded by a solid bronze arch, were a highly disquieting
experience, mentally expressed as: HOLY SHIT! -- these things aren't
supposed to exist in reality! It was a fable, a myth that had somehow burst the
bounds of common sense and popped into physical form. The immense stone
structure was thrust into the side of a mountain -- and of a design and thickness
that couldn't be budged by anything short of a volcanic eruption directly
underneath, which was geologically impossible in this part of the range. From the
shape of its roofline, she guessed that the Fortress was also prepared to weather
an atomic blast.

"Okay?" Archie asked.

DiMarco nodded. He led her through a reception hall. The detail crushed her
awareness with raw disbelief. It was almost hard to look at, because it was
treasure upon treasure, much of it acquired from the formerly "public" museum
collections of New York, Paris, and Amsterdam. Holy shit -- she muttered
again to herself, twice.

"Not bad, for only being in business twenty-eight years," Archie joked with a
wink, helping her to remember his infectious sense of light-hearted, casual
equilibrium. "When I first arrived here, one of the old jokers tried to convince me
that it was 150 years old. That was before I saw the plumbing. Most of the
Fortress was built during the war years, when all the heavy money moved to
LFC. It was originally a cult monastery -- just this Great Hall and a dirt
courtyard with huts, a couple of stone chapels and whatnot ... Am I boring you
with potted history?"

DiMarco shook her head to say 'no'. They were standing at an open door, the
kind that might be a closet. Help me, Archie -- she silently prayed. I'm way out
of my depth here.

He gestured comically that she should turn around. Archie's voice introduced
Lady Barbara, a woman of greater powers and far greater beauty than Janet
DiMarco. If age had stolen some of Lady Barbara's youthful bloom, in its place
had grown a magnificent, almost frightening wisdom. She smiled with approval
and offered her hand in friendship to the rugged detective. "Welcome to the
Fortress, Lieutenant DiMarco -- we've been expecting you. Follow me, please."
And with a gesture of command, she disappeared into the darkened closet.

Janet jerked her head at Archie. He shrugged and made goofy gestures, implying
that these were the rules and there wasn't much he could do about it. She pulled
herself out of a dream world and walked into darkness -- which suddenly and
unexpectedly became a nicely lighted chamber with feminine, gentle decor. There
were hanging gardens bathed in color, projected from cut glass skylights. The
interconnecting rooms were each cozy and spacious, a kind of symmetry that no
one could build from square construction. How on earth...? she began to wonder
-- but couldn't take time to wonder very long. Lady Barbara led her to a table
set for sixteen, at which thirteen faces of strength waited patiently to greet the
newcomer. "Sit here, next to me," Lady Barbara offered, and Janet DiMarco slid
quietly into a chair. A light, crisp lunch was on each plate, including hers. Bread
and icy wine bottles dotted a broad avenue of white linen. At the center of the
table, opposite, a woman in mauve silk rose to speak.

"Janet DiMarco," she acknowledged in welcome. "Lieutenant Detective of
Police... daughter of Marjorie Bain DiMarco, Circuit Court of Appeals -- a true
heroine, who gave her life for justice... daughter of the Chief Justice, who
likewise devoted himself, in the face of unbearable loss. You are among friends
here, my dear." She pointed in turn to several women along the table. "Lady
Francesca Du Lac. Lady Georgette Smith, who you know from history, I'm
sure. Be sure to speak loudly, if you have an opportunity to chat with Georgette.
That is, if you can catch her between naps ... Lady Donna Crain, the former
governor of Colorado. Lady Sira Barclay. Lady Jennifer Day -- really, you
know, it's impossible to remember so many names, and we have plenty of time
for this later. What I'm trying to convey, Janet, is that you are not only among
friends here -- and you are certainly welcomed by us all -- but more
importantly, we welcome you as an equal. We've kept in touch with
developments in the City. During the time that you served as a police officer,
crime was basically eradicated. You and your partner achieved something that
many of us once thought impossible. Thank you. If, by our friendship, you
discover a new happiness and source of strength, consider it a debt repaid with
love and admiration -- and quite a little disbelief that one young woman could
make such a difference in the lives of so many, in such a short time."

Her forearm tried to stop the collapse, but DiMarco crumbled into a pile of tears
across the table setting, twisting the snow-white linen and blubbering loudly,
helplessly. At her side, Lady Barbara silently pulled Janet's plate away,
moistened a napkin by dipping it in a water glass, and dabbed at Janet's face --
making it clear that nothing was wrong, it was understood. It took a long time for
the new kid to compose herself, slowly. And then Lt. DiMarco said, "Thank
you" -- quietly, and simply, and clearly. She fought back another wave of pain.
Lady Barbara offered a box of tissues. Janet swallowed and apologized for
messing up the table. A fresh plate was silently provided by a younger woman,
perhaps a servant. It was hard to tell who was who.

"Ready to eat?" someone asked, directly opposite, with a wink of pleasure.

Janet nodded, and the group of women began to dine -- occasionally to chat and
laugh, to pour one another a glass of wine, offer bread. It was the best meal
Janet DiMarco had ever eaten. She had lived in hardened, closed silence for
ten years -- especially in the cafeteria at Police Headquarters. She endured
loneliness as the price of her job. Now, it was clear that she had never lived at all
-- never lived as a woman or a person.

Unconsciously aware that there was an empty chair at her left, DiMarco quietly
asked Lady Barbara if someone else was expected. "Your partner," the older
woman smiled. "We thought it would be a fairly simple matter to bail her, but
Audrey had other ideas. Cubby should be here by midnight, that's the latest
guesstimate. Maybe you can help her make the transition. Her... uh... reputation
precedes her, as you can imagine. We thought it best that you and she continue
to work together, along with your new male companion."

A tall, gorgeous blond, sitting three chairs south, gushed with excitement --
apparently unable to contain herself one second longer. "Janet!" she blurted,
"Is it true? -- Sir Harmon says you and he are going to be married! -- how
wonderful for both of you! Harmon takes incredibly stupid risks, but he always
comes through, so you shouldn't worry, honestly."

One of Blondie's older and wiser neighbors cleared her throat, telling her to shut
up -- which she did at once, as soon as she got it, that her enthusiasm for Janet's
romance was causing a problem. "Don't let Lady Airhead upset you," Barbara
advised. "She knows a lot less about life than you do... Just eat your pickle,
Gretchen, and leave Janet alone, at least until she's had a chance to discuss all
that with Archie tonight... He hasn't told you a damn thing about himself, has he,
Janet?"

"No -- not really."

Lady Barbara harrumphed daintily over her remaining carrots and tender
langouste. "Harmon Kellogg," she pondered aloud, "-- doctor, lawyer, and
Indian chief, all rolled into one. And one of the bravest men who ever lived.
He..."

The wise one paused, changed her mind about something, weighing what was
best. "He's a good man for you, Janet," she said with maternal forgiveness and
warmth. "I'm Barbara Kellogg -- his mother. We have to call him 'Archie' for
another year, perhaps -- maybe just a couple months, if things go well. It
doesn't really matter." She put her hand across one of Janet's. "I'm very glad to
have you as a new daughter, if you can pull it off, my dear. You might have to sit
on him, once in a while," she concluded with a broad smile. Janet suddenly saw
the image of her lover in Lady Barbara's elegant, wise face. All Janet could
silently offer in reply was her willingness to live, and hope, newly minted.

DiMarco wondered, involuntarily, if such simple goodnesses were a reason to
marry someone? Hey -- wait a minute! -- how come I'm the only one not
consulted about marrying that rat?

.... and then she remembered that Harmon Kellogg, M.D., had proposed to her
in Brainy Butt's office at Medical Center, two days ago -- and that she told him
voluntarily and truthfully that she loved him, while they were driving up here. Oh,
shit ...! DiMarco gulped. The prospect of living the rest of her life worrying
about him and raising their children suddenly became a distinct probability --
and a very clear and present danger to DiMarco's freedom. If that suave son of
a bitch impregnated me, I'll kill him! -- she resolved, somewhat pathetically and
uselessly.


Chapter 6: A Little Night Music

This was intolerable. DiMarco sat slouched in a wicker chair in Archie's
bedroom, the thin tickle of a borrowed, ill-fitting flouncy chemise cutting her
neck. The rat said he wouldn't be out late, just wait for him, darling. That was
nine and a half hours ago.

She kicked off a pair of gold slippers, sending one of them flying hard enough to
break a window -- which would have been fine, except there weren't any
windows in Archie's bedroom. It was an open-air terrace that overlooked the
Pacific, built on the precipice of a tall, rocky peninsula, a symbol of competence.
The slipper sailed into space, tumbling into impenetrable darkness that roared
with crashing surf.

The rat said he designed it himself, just for her -- a spacious indoor lounge that
opened onto a broad, covered patio and a dimly lit stairway leading upward to a
plinth over the Pacific -- where she was expected to recline happily ever after,
waiting for Archie to show up when he felt like it. How nice.

DiMarco shot to her feet and began to pace -- first, in a circle around his bed,
then down the path and onto the patio, where deep pile carpet grasped the form
of her foot like a glove and its grip gave her something to struggle against.
Powerful flanks drove her forward, striding a hundred foot circuit, through a
shallow angle at the midpoint and two violent U-turns, one at each end of the
patio -- the restless, probing stalk of a caged animal. Things had gone from bad
to worse, as far as Lt. DiMarco was concerned. She had been fired, yanked off
a murder case, and ordered to work for City Special -- a nest of rats and liars.
'Archie' or 'Sir Harmon' (or whatever his name really was) had seduced her,
evaded her questions, handed her over to his mother, and promptly vanished "to
do a little errand, dear." Like hell. DiMarco had been sidelined -- imprisoned in
the fucking Fortress, shown the Great Life, and was no doubt supposed to roll
over with her paws folded. If he calls me honey one more time, I'm going to
deck him, DiMarco fumed.

She began to pace more slowly and thoughtfully, feeling each step instead of
racing to nowhere. There was a lot to digest. Her awkwardness at lunch
escalated into a major embarrassment. It was politely suggested that ladies don't
normally curse like truck drivers.

DiMarco halted angrily. A powerful temptation had to be fought down by will
power. It required all of her policy judgment and self-control to resist the impulse
to scream a litany of obscene epithets at the top her lungs, as an expression of
raw defiance. It would undoubtedly summon guards. There were a dozen or
more on duty in the labyrinth of the Fortress, a huge complex buried under
Archie's bedroom -- the nerve center of a global empire. Lady Barbara had
escorted her through a maze of tunnels, a journey that burned most of the
afternoon. Maybe for good reason. DiMarco was welcomed; included in a
private cabal at the real seat of power. Lady Barbara confirmed it -- and she
didn't mince her words. The Fortress ran the City, not the other way around.
"We pay your salary," Lady Barbara smiled gently. But her underground
communications lab left a scar that hurt, when DiMarco grasped its function.
They had real-time surveillance of several hundred people, including Janet
DiMarco. A microscopic camera was plucked from the strap of her purse by a
nervous, twenty-something technician, who joked that it required five decoys
and a dozen attempts to put it there. When? -- some time ago, the boy blushed
uncomfortably.

Worse: she liked it here. Every moment of the day had been etched into her
heart and mind, calling DiMarco to the enjoyment of private life. It was like
falling in love twice. Archie was bad enough -- now she was in love with his
mother, too. Lady Barbara was a study in perfection. Perfectly serene, perfectly
wise. Another puzzle piece clicked into place. Everywhere they walked in the
Fortress, technicians and guards bowed to Lady Barbara and addressed her as
"ma'am." Archie's father had been allegedly killed in Panama, many years ago,
but his name was never spoken, and every reference to his memory evoked a
cloak of silent, almost reverent grief. Two and two made four. The clues all
pointed in one direction. Georgette Smith, the Libertarian prime minister who
closed the Canadian border in '15 and triggered the crash, was here. Sira
Barclay, who ran the Vancouver Exchange and refused to trade in U.S. dollars,
was here. Every one of the women who gathered to honor DiMarco at lunch
was some kind of tycoon, or leader, or scientist -- except Gretchen, who starred
in a bunch of Canadian movies that DiMarco had never seen. Polite conversation
with Gretchen was an endurance test, not to haul off and belt her in the nose for
cooing incessantly about 'Sir Harmon The Wonderful'.

The whole thing was revolting, if she took it at face value: Lady This and Sir That
-- like a high school production of Camelot -- some silly, happy go lucky
pastiche of mannered society -- except that the loving care was authentic, shared
among genuine heroines who deserved to live quietly, cloistered from the noise
and gruff nuttiness of Nosara. It was difficult to criticize their retirement from
public duty. They were older, less able to…

DiMarco halted. At age 38, she too felt less able. Twelve years of police work
had robbed her happiness, given her nothing except tedium and trouble. She
never wanted it. She wanted to be a criminal defense attorney -- and she opened
a small private practice, two rooms on B Street, after clerking two years for her
mother. The memory buckled Janet at the knee, and she leaned heavily on a
stone balustrade to steady herself, suddenly unable to breathe very well. It
choked and hammered and hounded, too horrible to carry as conscious
knowledge, that her mother was assassinated in open court. There were not
tears enough, nor rage enough to salve this wrong. For the millionth time, Janet
DiMarco pulled herself up straight and tall, filling her lungs with fresh night air,
cleansed by the wide Pacific, to be held in brief dedication and released without
fear or pain or guilt. Just do your duty. Protect and serve. Don't let it happen
again.

"Hi, honey, I'm home!" Archie laughed from the foyer -- followed by the click of
a door, the flop of papers on a desk, and a series of big, soft footfalls. "Sorry I'm
late."

She turned to face him. The boyish gaiety died when Archie glimpsed her
expression -- or, rather, her lack of expression. Like a stone lion, impervious to
feeling, DiMarco gave him nothing. "I know who your father was," she warned in
the tone of an accusation.

Archie reacted hotly. "Who told you?" he demanded.

She turned away, left him standing in the middle of the patio, and silently went to
her handbag on the bar, unsnapping the clasp and digging out a pack of Camels.
Her solid silver cigarette lighter clicked twice. The white butane jet did its work,
and she exhaled a dense gray cloud of smoke. "Nobody told me anything. I'm a
detective. I figured it out," she finally replied. "It's standard procedure: to follow
the money. Whatever name you decide to use when we get married, you'll still
be the Sovereign -- unless there's an older brother involved."

Archie sat down, dumbfounded. "What did you say?" he asked heavily.

"That you're the Chief Executive of…"

"No, no -- not that -- I mean about you and I being --"

"Married? Yes, Archie, I'll marry you. If you want, we'll have children," she
answered, without emotion or concern, like a loyal officer. "I understand why
you chose me. I don't like the fact that you've been snooping on me and
monitoring what I do -- for God knows how long -- but I understand why you did
it. I also think it's possible that you love me, as much as any man can love a
woman, and that you'll make a good husband and father -- although I had zero
intention, until recently, of ever having another 'husband'. It's actually a repellent
idea. However, I accept that it's politically important."

Archie nodded gravely. He gestured at the bar. "Give me a cigarette."

She offered him the one she was smoking. He held it like a flamethrower, tried to
take a puff and coughed violently, shaking hot ashes on the carpet. She calmly
crushed them out, barefoot, while Archie continued to cough and then dashed
for a drink of water at the bar. "Let me guess," she muttered. "You don't smoke,
do you?"

Recovered enough to indicate, Archie shook his head 'no'.

"I see," she concluded from the sofa, shifting her long legs to display them
horizontally across three supple kid leather cushions. "You're not taking this very
well, Archie," she observed. "There are worse things than being married. Besides
which, it was your idea -- not mine. Decisions have consequences."

Archie nervously poured a large glass of whiskey and tried to drink it down,
almost holding his nose. The first swallow was enough to make his eyes water --
and the second got sprayed over the bar in another bout of coughing. She got up
to help him.

"If you don't drink, Archie, there's no point in trying to learn now," she explained
with a gentle pat on his back that became a loving embrace. "It's not so bad.
You'll get used to it eventually. You're just having a panic attack. Come sit with
me on the couch… Sit a little farther -- that's good. Take your shoes off,
Archie… Now lay down, with your head in my lap. That's right --"

"I've got your partner downstairs," he tried to object.

"That's nice," she smiled. "I'm sure Cubby can take care of herself for a while.
Just rest." Her long fingers gently and expertly lifted his dark brown hair, stroking
the side of his head like a cat, tenderly embracing a brain that was yearning for
solace. "We can do this any time you want," she purred softly in his ear, and
quietly opened his shirt buttons, slipping her strong right hand under the fabric to
caress his chest. She bent to kiss his forehead, then his torso -- her hard, ample
breasts crossing his shoulder and cheek. She withdrew and used her hands to
open her chemise, spilling comfort onto his lips and into his mouth. When he
tugged, she did not flinch. When he rose to undress, she stood with one knee on
the arm of the couch, and her thin nightshirt slipped to the floor like a quiet sigh
of sensuous pleasure.

There are a thousand ways to make love, no two alike, no moment the same
between two vital people who choose the Unknown in every unfolding instant of
life. Until now, Archie had been the active one, the confident and successful one.
He stood erect and approached her. She turned and waited, her feet standing
comfortably apart on soft gray wool. He was only two inches taller, she noted.
Probably the same weight class. Archie was slender -- not an ounce of fat on his
ribs. On the other hand, he had plenty of muscle and solid thighs. Probably
worked out in a gym every day. Oh well… what the hell…

"En garde," she bowed.

Archie frowned -- and got a nice, clean, straight kick in the chest, just hard
enough to make him stagger backward. "If you don't fight back, dear, you're
gonna get your royal butt kicked," DiMarco explained.

"What on earth for?" Archie yelped in protest.

"For a number of things, honey -- like keeping me waiting all night…" Bap! --
she landed a jab on his upper arm, hard enough to sting. "And for being a sexist
patriarch…" Bap! -- another punch caught his other arm, this time while he
backed away, refusing to fight.

"Janet! -- stop it! -- are you out of your mind?" he complained.

She grinned at him and dropped to a low crouch, ready to leap. "Oh! -- so it's
'Janet' all of a sudden! Not dearest darling PUMPKIN any more?" She sprang,
ran, and twirled him in a low tackle from behind, felling him with a hefty thump
that shook the rafters. He couldn't squirm away fast enough -- she got an arm
behind his back, then a knee on his butt -- and finally, she stood on his neck, his
right arm pulled up high in a potentially painful wristlock. Archie had no choice
but to submit. To his credit, there was a minimum of screaming -- just a low,
stifled male shriek on occasion when she became emphatic. "There will
henceforth be no dears, darlings, fruits, vegetables, or bakery products used
instead of my name," she ordered. "I like my name. I am also a senior command
officer, and I worked very hard to obtain that rank. I suggest you stop treating
me like an airhead, and start treating me like a law enforcement professional,
Your Majesty. Got it?"

Archie tried to nod. "I promise," he affirmed politely.

"Official deal between us?" she doubted.

"Official deal," he echoed. "I won't call you pet names. I'm very sorry, Janet. It
was insensitive and disrespectful. I did it deliberately to… well, you know -- to
get your attention -- and then, afterwards, it was just a joke. I promise, on my
honor as a freeman, never to tease you ever again about our… uh… intimate
relationship. Okay?"

She took her foot off his neck. "Okay. Did I hurt you?"

"Repeatedly," he grumbled from the carpet, slowing turning onto his back,
wiggling his arm to wake it up and make it function again. "Jesus Christ, Janet,
you're dangerous."

She sat at his side, legs folded Indian style. "Is that a surprise?" she laughed.

Archie shook his head. She could see a question forming on his brow. "Is there
any pet name I can use for you?" he queried. "I love you. I'd like to say that
somehow, without having to say it… that --"

DiMarco shook her head gravely. "Don't say it, Archie. Just think it. Remember
when we drove up here, and I said 'I love you'? -- you almost missed a turn in
the road, and you told me: 'Don't say that too often… I'm not made of stone' --
remember? Well, I ain't made of sugar and spice and everything nice. Two
darlings and a half dozen dears are enough to make me want to vomit -- and I'd
vastly prefer to remain in love with you, instead of hating every minute, if you see
what I mean. Which reminds me: what took so long tonight? It's after two."

Archie rolled on the floor, relaxing into a graceful stretch of tight, lithe strength. "I
had to wait to spring Cubby and then convince her to get in my car. Barrel of
fun."

She cuddled at his side. "Did I really hurt you?" she worried.

"No," he smiled, gathering her into his arms with a slow, natural fall that took
them as one into a passionate clutch, DiMarco's weight and heat resting on his.
Her legs opened to seek him, and Archie held her tightly as they joined. It was
never easy, never simple to lay this woman -- to hold her down, to help her
surrender and yield. He had to be quick, but steady. It had to be a surprise, yet
perfectly natural, no surprise at all. They rolled in unison, and her black mane
finally spilled across the blanket of Archie's living room carpet. His room. His
castle. His land. His life.

-- and his collapse, spent.

She held him and protected him, clawing gently at his hair and neck, his
shoulders and back muscles, inhaling the scent of her man, two-thirds drunk with
love and honor, a woman's final choice, never to be withdrawn, no matter what.
Do you know, Archie? -- that I'll never leave you? That I've taken you within,
and I can't let you out?

Apparently not. He was snoring, oblivious to her psychic confession. That was
okay. Love should be on a need-to-know basis. The last thing Archie needed
was another babe who loved him and turned to jelly when he smiled. His mother
was right. DiMarco needed to sit on him, once in a while -- instead of being
crushed and constricted while he snored in her left ear. "Archie!" got no
response. She wiggled a leg free and carefully rolled him off, laying his head on
the carpet beside her. It was an elaborate procedure, attempting to avoid the
inevitable pull on the chafed skin of her breasts, which were stuck by moisture to
Archie's rib cage. He also weighed a ton. In an enlightened society, men would
be half the size of women, she reasoned.

DiMarco rose and strolled up the winding staircase, gazing at the night sky -- a
great black dome of brilliant stars and gleaming galaxies. Its awe made no sense
whatsoever. The universe was too beautiful to grasp, and Janet DiMarco felt
inadequate to speak or think of its meaning. Like her romance with Archie, it
simply was. She fetched the lightweight bed cover and folded it twice, returning
to the living room to cover them both.

"Lights off," she called -- and their room joined the night, black and still, except
for an irregular and maddening snore emanating from the Chief Executive. For
about an hour, DiMarco poked him and pondered the wisdom of sleeping with
him. It would be a lot better to have separate bedrooms, rather than poke
Archie twenty times a night. And a strong poke only stopped him for a few
minutes -- as soon as she drifted off to sleep, the rat started snoring again,
waking her again. Their second night together, she began to understand why
women sometimes kill their husbands for no particular reason.


Chapter 7: Sergeant Cornflake

Chief Scientist Julie Levine shook her head, letting it fall into her hands like a
dead cabbage. "This is nuts," she moaned.

Squatting on a hard Louis XIV poofie, struggling nervously to keep a porcelain
teacup, saucer, and teaspoon balanced on her knees, Sgt. Susan Drake silently
suffered another wave of panic and confined her response to a single syllable:
"Uh…"

DiMarco exhaled a column of cigarette smoke and wagged her ankle. Susan had
the right idea. It was not immediately obvious whether it was safe to offer advice.
It's best to let these things unfold quietly, to the extent that it's possible. Cubby
was doing Cubby, and she was doing it rather well, under the circumstances. I'll
just watch, unless she starts yelling and throwing things. Who knows? -- it might
not be a disaster. She looks exactly like a gorilla in a tutu, when she bends
over like that, but there's no reason to worry. Relax and smile.

Sgt. Cubby Rice glanced up and frowned. "What the hell are you laughing
at?"

Cubby's tough, flinty suspicion was irresistibly amusing. "Protect and serve,"
DiMarco grinned amiably -- letting her partner see that the situation was
preposterous, and that cops are cops: we ain't supposed to be here, or do this
kind of shit, so forget about it -- don't do anything extra or unnecessary. Cubby
snorted in agreement.

"It is absolutely perfect for you!" the Dior consultant decided.

Lady Barbara cut off the sales pitch. "Be quiet, Lily. Let the woman decide for
herself. Sergeant Rice has to feel comfortable -- and I don't want you twisting her
arm, like you normally do with some brainless Garza Gal."

Five women turned their attention, again, to the center of the room, where
Cubby Rice faced three full-length mirrors. The sales consultant circled like a
hungry barracuda. She prowled and fussed and pinched at the seams of Cubby's
organza frock, occasionally withdrawing to loudly click her disdain of delay and
indecision by popping a manicured thumbnail against four equally hard
opponents, sonically chanting: Time is money. Time is money.

Cubby hated the color, hated the fabric, hated the stupid lace bits, hated the
shoulder straps, and couldn't figure out where to put a gun. The waistband was
too tight, the skirt was too short, and as far as Cubby could tell, she looked
exactly like a lemon meringue pie. The high heels hurt like hell. Why on earth do
women do this -- ? You'd think they could have evolved a micron or two, instead
of dressing up like fairy princesses, for the adolescent amusement of a bunch
of…

Gulp. They were all staring at her. It was intolerable and terrifying, the one thing
she hated most -- being on display, expected to have an opinion. Cubby was
incapable of choosing her own clothes, had no idea whether something looked
good or ridiculous on her. Always looked ridiculous, except in uniform. I HATE
BEING STARED AT!

"It's fine, I'll take it, get me out of this stupid thing," she blurted, tearing at a
zipper that was impossible to find without a map, a compass, and a pair of
tweezers. The dress felt like a barbed wire prison. Cubby wobbled to the
dressing room, ripping seams every step, until she realized that it was possible to
kick off these stupid satin pumps and walk like a normal person again. A flock of
hands, wielded by Dior's finest, unhooked twenty tabs and a thousand invisible
teeth. The pale lemon puffball let go and slid. Cubby struggled with a prickly new
bra and the rest of the girlie gear, until it was gone -- for now. Maybe I should
chop my tits off and be done with it, once and for all. At least have a reduction.
Quit horsing around and just do it. I hate being female.

"Where in this hell are my street clothes?" she raged.

I shoulda stayed in the Corps. That's the real problem. All this civilian bullshit,
like life's a damn dainty tea party! Not one of those bitches can stand on her
own two feet, when it hits the fan -- except DiMarco, maybe. And now she says
she's in love! Great. Bloody marvelous. Detective Lieutenant Bimbo. And I get
to be the chump again. Back her up while she walks into a blind alley.

Halfway into her denim jeans, Cubby looked up into Janet DiMarco's eyes for a
split second, long enough to see a glance that said "Shhh." Without explanation,
DiMarco got Cubby separated from her street clothes again, including the
crumpled jeans that almost made it to her waist. Naked, she obeyed DiMarco's
gesture to follow, and the two women silently fled the dressing rooms, to a
janitor's closet that had a big square sink with a smelly mop. DiMarco peeled off
her own sun dress, tossed it in the hallway, slipped out of her shoes, and closed
the door. She held Cubby in a close embrace -- a sudden, velvety thrill -- and
whispered into her ear so softly that Sgt. Rice had to concentrate and practically
hold her breath, so she could hear what DiMarco was murmuring.

"I marked the files you need to read. Twenty-two suspects."

"Okay."

"Here's the chip. Put it in the same place I carried it."

"Okay."

"Are you alright?"

"Are you insane?"

"What do you mean?"

"Are you really in love with that guy?"

"Yes."

"And you're really going to marry him?"

"Yes."

For a split second, Cubby wanted to scream. DiMarco held her firmly.

"Stop that!" DiMarco warned.

"This whole set-up is insane!"

"No, it's not. It's a death threat. Our job is to protect him."

"…at a wedding reception with five hundred guests?"

"To let it happen if it's going to happen."

"But why -- ?"

"To stop it. To end it."

"I don't think…"

"Archie'll wear kevlar."

"On his head?"

"All you have to do is the ceremony."

"What about you -- ?"

"Never mind about me. Just read the files."

"When?"

"I told them Peter was picking you up."

Cubby chewed on this news for a half-second, then nodded. It wouldn't hurt to
go home. If she went back to the Fortress, she'd probably punch somebody.
DiMarco whispered a final note of caution.

"Buy new clothes."

"Bugged?"

"Bugged."

"Okay."

"Don't use your apartment."

"Okay."

"Channel 307."

"Three zero seven."

Then they were out, and dressed, and DiMarco was making jokes at Brainy
Butt's expense, pretending that thirty seconds in a utility closet never happened.
Lady Barbara threatened to call the store's bank note, unless they got Cubby's
lemon meringue ready in time, and Susan Drake drooled like a horny schoolgirl
every time DiMarco crossed her legs or took another drag on another Camel.

Why does everything always have to take forever, for rand's sake! Cubby hated
sitting around like this -- gabbing, gabbing, gabbing for no reason, because
command said it was important to waste time and get a sore butt on miserable,
old-fashioned chairs under a cut glass chandelier. Bullshit.

"Get me out of here," she growled to a familiar face, slamming the car door hard.

Her husband was not amused. "Okay," he drawled in slow motion. "Nice to see
you, too, dear." The car started and pulled into traffic. "It would have been
helpful, if somebody had told me where you disappeared to last night," he
added.

Cubby folded one cheek in a clench and mentally said she was sorry, without
looking at him. "I had an assignment," she grumped.

"Oh -- ! That explains everything," Peter Rice replied sarcastically. "Silly me. I
thought you were in jail for aggravated battery and two hundred other infractions
of the Code. Or dead, laying in a sewer behind the airport -- since no one at the
station knew where you went, and they took your shield and gun."

Cubby slumped. She wanted to tell him and couldn't. "I'm sorry, Pete. Janet and
I --"

"-- decided to go shopping at Christian Dior?" he interrupted.

They were two-thirds of the way to her Nosara apartment, stopped at a traffic
light, heading in the wrong direction. "Peter, I don't want to go to 'F' Street. We
have to go to the finca." She reached in the glove compartment, unfolded a nylon
holster that held a heavy .45 automatic, and cinched it around her waist.

"Who are you planning to kill?" her husband's old sad eyes politely inquired.

She grumped at him again. "Nobody. It's green."

Peter slowly shifted his gaze to the traffic light and nodded agreement. "Indeed it
is. Just answer the question." Two cars barreled past them, honking their
annoyance. "I need to know what the hell is going on, Cindy. I'll take you to the
ranch -- but you and I are going to have major problems, unless you tell me
what's happening."

She shook her head. "I can't."

"Can't? -- or won't?"

Her heart softened to him. It was dangerous and illegal to block the road,
parked at a busy intersection, but this moment between them mattered more than
anything. "I can't talk about it right now, Peter. I'm too upset. Just take me home
to the ranch, where I can relax a little -- okay?"

The long drive was like most long drives -- a gap in confrontation, letting the air
of worry and heartache blow out the windows and past the roof, one emotional
atom after another, until it seemed normal and natural to be with Peter again. By
the time they reached Ostional, she found herself leaning in the corner of her car
seat, an arm draped comfortably on the frame of her open window, fingers glad
to find the sharp, straight line of chrome that separated life from gravel and jungle
and peril. It was fine to be free for a while, crunching along a familiar dirt road
that led home, to peace and quiet. It had been more than a month since Peter
held her in his arms and sang special songs to her -- silly old songs that he made
up, a few deep notes that meant nothing, except his steady, untarnished care.
She turned to him and smiled.

"I love you, Peter."

He brightened like a schoolboy. "You do? -- no fooling?"

"No fooling," she grinned. "I have a week off, before I have to go back to town.
Maybe we can go camping on the mountain a couple nights. Swim in the
waterfall."

"Ride or hike?"

Cubby laughed. "What do you think? -- my butt needs a saddle, pronto," she
exclaimed, referring to the ecstasy of freedom she always felt on horseback. But
Peter raised his cartoon eyebrows a mile or two, and rolled his mouth in a
parody of scandal, hearing something entirely different. And Cindy laughed with
him, getting the pun, that her butt needed a saddle. That, too, loverboy -- she
blushed happily, feeling young and clean and innocent. The real me. Not on the
job. Just me.

So that it was a hard black shock, like slamming a door, when they rolled
through the front gate and Pete hit the brakes to avoid a white government van.
Two Costa Rican bureaucrats were scratching their heads at the fringe of a
camouflage net, wondering what to do next.

Shouting "Cindy!" achieved nothing.

"Get away from that plane!" she screamed as she ran. "Ustedes vallanse de
mi propiedad -- or I'll kick your Tico asses the fuck out!"

By the time her husband caught up to her, she had them cornered under a
500-gallon fuel tank that stood on galvanized struts behind the plane. Peter
dashed to grab her arm. It was wielding a hefty chunk of fence rail that had split
and been thrown on the woodpile. "NO, CYNTHIA!" he bellowed at her,
shaking it free from her hand, twisting her around in the struggle. "For God's
sake, woman! Lighten up! Let me handle this."

"Get off my property!" she screamed at the safety officials again.

"We must have the inspection, Capitan!" one of them answered angrily. "This
year we have the inspection. Please, Mr. Rice -- you are a nice man -- tell her it is
the law of Costa Rica. The Capitan knows this is true. We are only doing our
job!"

Peter's mistake was to turn and face the two men, attempting by word and
gesture a contrite apology that was preempted by an explosion. Captain C.S.
Theobald, USMC, drew her .45 and fired it in the air. "Saldra!" she yelled at
their fleeing backs -- and fired again, to make sure they got the message. When
the government van stalled in a hurried series of turns, trying to leave as quickly
as possible, she shot out a headlight.

Peter bent in half, his hands on his knees, then sat in the dirt, older and sadder.
"That was a big mistake, babe," he said quietly.

"I can't pass an inspection!" she yelled at him. "It's an F-8A with a full rack! --
and I stole it from the United States Marine Corps, you imbecile! I told you, if
they inspect it, they'll impound it as war contraband. Peter, you have to do what
we always do -- pay them off!"

Her husband shook his head, seeing the future. "Not bloody likely, now."

She frowned and holstered the hot automatic. "Why not?"

"Why not…" he echoed sarcastically. "You can't threaten people at gunpoint and
expect them to negotiate. And those guys aren't as stupid as you think. They got
close enough to see what it was. You just lost your airplane, Cynthia."

Dinner was sullen and resentful. She threw a plate at him, and he said nothing to
her. He pecked at undercooked vegetables a few minutes, ignoring the meat --
then left the table with a quiet apology for being unable to eat much. She threw
everything in the trash and clattered two greasy plates on the kitchen counter.
Shit. Why is it always me? Why can't somebody else be wrong, once in a while?
It wasn't Pete's fault, either. If DiMarco hadn't summoned him to pick her up in
Atlantis -- at that stupid dress shop! -- Peter would've been here and dealt with
the civil aviation inspectors, like he did last year.

It was the one thing she owned. Everything else was in hock, or Peter's, or
borrowed -- like most of the small arms she'd squirreled away in the pump
house. Headquarters was missing a few stun grenades and a mortar. And a
Barker recoilless. And a crate of CS. So what? -- better she had them, than let
Audrey Pole-Up-Her-Ass decide how much paperwork they had to sign before
they could use a peashooter. These are my things. My aircraft! -- I risked my
goddamned life for it! I earned it twice! -- she fulminated, and the stiff red scars
on her shoulder and chest cried out in remembered anguish. I put my life on the
line every weaselly day for the City!

And now this -- some Looney Toon escapade with big shots. It wasn't enough to
draw down on a Nico gang last year and take a slug in her thigh, because Janet
was a tenth of a second too slow in dropping the bastard. Killing is a command
decision. Trapped by duty, waiting for DiMarco to make a decision. I took the
slug… It ripped me like…

Cubby's body screamed "No!" defiantly and clutched at the countertop, grabbing
it like a neck to be wrung. I ain't gonna be a lousy airhead bridesmaid at a
funeral! To hang around and watch Janet waste herself on some asshole
playboy plutocrat, and take a steel-jacketed twinkie with his name on it. For
what? To protect and serve what?

She crumbled, and tears flooded her face. They were hot, angry tears of grief --
the kind that burn when they fall, because nothing matters any more, no good
can come of it, whatever happens next. The mental image of DiMarco dead and
bleeding tore at her stomach, and Cubby collapsed to the kitchen floor, sliding
down the drawer fronts, one level after another -- until she was flat on her face in
a pool of saline. Peter came to her, picked her up, and carried her to the
bedroom. She was unable to stop, no longer part of the conscious world, wailing
and keening for the dead. He knew it would continue a long time -- maybe an
hour, maybe two. All he could do was to lift her into bed, take off her shoes and
socks, then her filthy denim pants, to let her cry herself to sleep in the one place
on earth where she was safe, at home in his care and protection.

He switched out the light and left her to weep in private, stopping in the hallway
to bow his heavy head and beg God for just one favor, never to be increased or
altered -- prayed a hundred times in the three years they had been married -- to
please, Lord, let her live in peace. Don't make her suffer like this. She's a good
girl, and a brave girl, and I love her very much.

And then there were dishes and pots to scrub, trash for the compost heap and
lights to switch on at dusk. Peter Rice accepted his limitations. All he could do
was keep the farm, feed the horses and chickens, make the best of it and make
her comfortable. When she let him. When she could. And that was enough,
because he loved her and respected her and saw the frightened child that Cindy
truly was -- his to protect and serve, to the extent he could, with God's guidance
and grace.


Chapter 8: The Bed People

It was slightly scandalous -- maybe. But it sure felt good. Janet DiMarco cleared
her throat and slid down in her chair a couple inches. I should tell Archie about
this.

The War Room blinked and hummed and beeped, a perfect setting for -- oooh,
Dinky!

DiMarco grabbed the edge of the console desk, because she was starting to
slide right to the floor. "Wait a minute," she whispered -- and hauled herself into a
slightly more comfortable and secure position at the screen. "Okay. Carry on." It
made perfect sense. First and seventh chakras. Study the wall-size display and
purr as quietly as possible. "Ow," she grunted suddenly. She bopped Susan
Drake on the top of her head. "Easy… and don't make so much noise,"
DiMarco hissed angrily. But the contretemps vanished and a few seconds later
she was arching her feet, lifting her legs, and had somehow managed to park
both heels on Susan's butt -- all of which was concealed nicely by a big walnut
console and a picket fence of raceways. Susan was being especially obedient
today. Yes, my sweet, you are a very good grrrl and I shall have to give you a
nice surprise upstairs, with my black vinyl belt and a pair of cuffs. You'd like that
-- wouldn't you?

Yipes! -- a pudgy male face was staring at her across the top of the console.
"What the hell do you want?" DiMarco demanded.

He blanched and stepped back. "I'm sorry. Sorry to disturb you, Lieutenant.
I'm going to use the rest room for a few minutes, and if you need anything --"

"Fine. Beat it."

The duty officer promptly vanished. He was just like the rest of them, secretly
oggling her every three seconds -- especially today, because DiMarco barged into
the War Room in a black bikini and a thin cotton shirt that was open at the front.
She and Susan had been playing in the pool, when DiMarco decided to check
her surveillance program. The big screen opposite, three levels down in the pit,
displayed two huge views: a Mercator projection of the world and a one
hundred mile radius of the City. Blinking icons on both marked who was who
among a thousand targets. It was puzzling and troubling that Whipple, the Chief
Cashier, fell off the radar screen yesterday. Damn it, where is he? -- DiMarco
grumbled pleasantly.

The thrill of almost being caught suddenly filled her with excitement, and she
grabbed Susan by the hair, riding her face like a wild horse between her legs.
They were alone for a few minutes, by God -- it was now or never. Dinky's
mouth bucked and slid and gulped, stretching her to suck the hard, slick pyramid
of DiMarco's command.

"Hold it! Hold it! Stop!" she suddenly ordered, sitting upright. Whipple's
identifier had popped onto the big screen. DiMarco slapped the console and got
a detailed version of the event. Clarence Whipple apparently came within range
of a cell transponder, about fifty miles north of the Fortress -- in the middle of
nowhere? Dumped there?

"Susan -- get up! Get out of there! I want the chopper ready to fly in fifteen
minutes. Get going!"

"Huh?"

"Scramble the Jet Ranger! -- that's an order!"

Sgt. Drake discretely wiped her mouth and said "Yes, ma'am" politely, leaving
DiMarco to fidget with a screen and keyboard, no longer enjoying herself or
anyone else. The boss was on the trail of a missing person -- with both feet
squarely on the floor. Susan Drake's lascivious tongue was irrelevant when the
Lieutenant was working an intercept, and it was wrong to beg, anyway. Susan
Drake had been begging for scraps of pleasure since the day they met, twelve
years ago -- two brand new beat cops on the streets of Nosara, partners for a
week, before Drake was accepted to Flight School and DiMarco hooked up
with Audrey Russell -- both of them destined for command. Except that Audrey
was an ugly ox, with the disposition of a lizard. Yuck. Even the thought was
disgusting, having any contact with Audrey at all. It was wonderful, fantastic, that
DiMarco had requested a helicopter pilot -- and asked for her, Susan!

Sgt. Drake threaded her way through the corridors and passages, generating a
series of salutes that were dutifully answered by a tall, willowy blond in a teeny
red bikini that had a City shield pinned to a sagging spaghetti strap. It was the
most prominent feature on Susan Drake's chest.

I really really want an augmentation. I've got nothin' at all, practically. These guys
don't even give me a second look -- Susan sighed for the millionth time. I'm
pretty enough, and I'm very willing. I'll do anything. Well… not 'anything'… I
mean, I don't want any kids, that's for sure. But great in bed, great anywhere. It's
the one thing I know how to do. Slow and steady, just tease it like an aileron --
rev' a little for takeoff, and be ready to fly, as fast and far as they want to go. I
like guys well enough, I guess. They're okay. Except they can be pretty dorky,
most of the time. Especially Klipsch -- but actually, he's okay, too. He just has a
hard time, trying to keep everything in order and do all the ground checks and
find parts and whatnot. I like everybody -- except Audrey. And Cubby. She can
be pretty cruel. She's the one who named me... Well. There you go. See? I'm
just too skinny! Like Cubby said -- "Dinky Tits" Drake. That's the problem.

Sgt. Drake poked her legs through a jump suit, pulled it over, and zipped it up.
She grabbed her helmet, flight case, boots and sunglasses, and marched for the
front door. Oh, no! -- the skids of her 57A had sunk deep -- real deep -- into a
lush, irrigated lawn that doubled as Archie's practice fairway. And it was
ominously tail down and canted to one side. The thick grass surrounding the
helicopter was littered with little white eggs that Archie had plopped there from
the practice tee.

Three steps behind her, Lt. Det. DiMarco hiked an evil-looking Kalashnikov
over her shoulder and told Drake to get a move on, quit gawking at the
shrubbery. The two women boarded the helicopter, and Drake settled back to
do a proper pre-flight. "Skip that --" DiMarco cursed. "Let's go. Follow the
coast, north." The turbine cranked and caught, the pilot checked her flight
controls -- and then rammed kerosene down its throat at full throttle. The
machine vibrated, shook, and suddenly lept into the air like a wild animal, slightly
out of Susan Drake's control.

"Wait a minute! Wait a minute!" DiMarco shouted over the intercom. "Set it
back down. Archie's waving at us."

Blown to bits by the propwash, Archie dove for the cargo door and held on,
halfway into a seat, as the Jet Ranger roared again and headed for the GPS
coordinates on DiMarco's notepad. Eventually, the Chief Executive squeezed
into a chair and got hold of a headset. "Um… excuse me, Janet… good
morning, Sue," he piped. "I'm not entirely sure that this is necessary. The boys in
the basement tell me that it might be… uh… unconfirmed."

DiMarco frowned. "Uh-huh," she said absently. "Sometimes, Archie, you'd
make a much more convincing case, if you put some clothes on. And that
particular swim suit doesn't leave much to the imagination, does it, Dinks?" From
the left chair, Sgt. Drake blushed beet red and concentrated on the altimeter,
trading lift for airspeed. "About ten minutes to intercept," she coughed with
embarrassment.

Archie feigned a philosophical detachment. "Now, there -- you see? A lot could
happen in ten minutes. Poor old Clarence might already be dead, for all we
know -- or somebody stole his PDA and threw it in the ocean."

DiMarco turned in her chair to cross-examine. "Archie, exactly what are you
doing in this aircraft?"

Archie smiled pleasantly, enjoying himself. "Backing you up, de-… um, sorry --
I mean: Lieutenant." Another big grin. "I brought a gun -- see?" He waved a
nickel-plated, spoon-sized .25 proudly. It was the cigarette lighter from the
Founders Club Room.

Hmph. DiMarco mentally groused that it was time she had a promotion, and she
leaned back to study the rolling, tilting landscape. How about "Major DiMarco"?
…or maybe "Generalissimo DiMarco." That would be nice. Finally outrank a
boyfriend who plays golf in nylon briefs that bulge like a comic opera. Cosi fan
Froot Loop… OKAY, OKAY, OKAY! -- stop this. Leave Archie alone.
You're just mad about losing another civilian, whoever Clarence is. Don't get
personally involved with these people. You're a cop. Stay a cop. Be a cop, no
matter what.

"Hush the engine," she ordered sharply. They were nearing the coordinates. It
popped into view when they sailed over a mountain crest -- apparently a big,
sprawling estate near the beach. Vehicle lot. Pretty plush. Obviously civilian.

"Oh! -- look!" Archie exclaimed. "Sea turtles, Janet. A big arribada."

"Archie, shut up!… Put me down near the parking lot, Drake," she barked at
them, and the helicopter soared to a thud on an asphalt access road, standard
procedure for a siege. DiMarco sprang from craft, ready for action. The pilot
was right behind her, in a flash, sidearm drawn, ready for orders. Archie's
melodic voice hailed from the cargo door.

"Pumpkin, I know you're busy, but could you possibly help me? I seem to be
stuck."

"What?" she exploded, in disbelief. "Did I hear you call me pumpkin?…! Give
me that. Let go, Archie! -- Ooouuu, you idiot, you put it in the wrong way
again. Stop that, or I'll hit you. This is not an amusement ride, petunia!-- so
hands off. Or you can just sit here, while Susan and I search this joint. There.
You should be able to do the rest."

Archie dutifully nodded. "Thank you, dear," he added respectfully.

"-- however…!" he called after her, running to catch up, "Ouch! Ouch!
Ouch!…"

DiMarco's shoulders slumped and her gait slowed to a crawl. Why me?… "Next
time wear some shoes, Your Infinite Highness," she grumbled loudly, without
looking. "You'll find it helpful in police work." No longer able to retain the sense
of mission that brought her here, DiMarco hoisted her assault rifle into a
comfortable position, slung it over her shoulder -- and began to sense that Archie
was withholding crucial information again. Hmph. A little slow on the uptake, but
better late than never. Archie was playing games with her. It was the only habit
that he seemed to demonstrate on a consistent, daily basis. That, and pretending
to be charmingly incompetent, like a big six-year-old. DiMarco halted with
Drake at her side, and they waited for King Canute to hop across a scorching
hot pavement and join them on the grass. He arrived with a sheepish grin.

"Okay, Arch -- I give up. What is it?"

"What is what?" he dummied, not very innocently.

"Hey, you!" somebody yelled from the main house, trotting in their direction.
"Shut off that helicopter. This is private property. We have people trying to sleep
here!"

"It's off, already! -- in cool down -- so lighten up, fatso!" Susan yelled back.

DiMarco ignored the flak. "You know perfectly well what I mean," she insisted,
taking a step toward Archie with a trademark Don't Fuck With Me look in her
eyes. Archie gulped and nodded, backing away. It was going to be a long
marriage. Best to humor his better half whenever possible. Especially when she
was right.

"Yes, dear," he agreed in apology, using his million candlepower charm. "I know
exactly what you mean. I was just waiting for the right moment to tell you --
honestly." Archie shrugged and spread his hands, with a hint of mirth. Please
don't think me silly, Janet, he beseeched kinesthetically -- it's not as bad as it
looks. He gestured at the mansion, slightly distracted by the roly-poly approach
of a little Oriental guy wearing a bandana on his forehead and nothing else. "This
is… a… uh… historic City Landmark, so to speak," Archie fumbled
awkwardly. "-- which very few people know about. Hello, Fred!" he waved.
Then the Chief Executive leaned a bit closer, to utter a word of warning in
DiMarco's right ear. "The bed people!" he whispered.

She didn't quite catch what he said. "The bid people?"

But Archie was merrily greeting the little round Oriental guy -- Fred -- who
apparently liked to talk. They shook hands, embraced, slapped each other on
the shoulder, and performed a dozen other drinking buddy antler waving male
bonding rituals. "Jeez, Arch," Fred rattled happily, "I didn't know it wuz you.
Cool, dude! Gimme five! Gimme seven! Gimme twelve! Hey, Arch, you old
loafer, you look like a billion bucks. Hi, ladies. Great outfits. Come on up,
everybody. Sorry I blew my top. We get all kinds up here. Listen, Archie! -- I
been thinkin' -- you know that Sultan's Tent you wanted? Well, Ernesto thinks
that twenty gee's is way too much for a pile of silk and a couple o' pegs -- right?
-- so here's the plan. My sister-in-law's cousin is doing surplus outta Chicago,
and I figure he owes me, because we bought a big shitload of pillows from him
and paid way too much -- on top of which, the pillows had a manufacturing
defect, so Gloria and a bunch of the other gals got together and fixed 'em up real
nice, but I let Sidney off the hook because his two-year-old needed braces or
some shit, and he knows he schtupped me. Actually, what I think he's been doin'
is playing the horses again and, ba-boom, I get clipped for an extra grand and
we got little pieces of foam all over the joint. So! -- the bottom line is: Sid owes
me and he's got a big warehouse full of surplus parachutes in Jersey, real nice,
right out of the box, never been used. That's what he says anyway."

Archie seemed pleased. "Swell… uh… is Clarence here?"

"Dunno, Arch. I just got up. Maybe Peggy's got him chained up somewhere?"

"Naw -- once was enough. Had to be."

"Yeah, you'd think."

From time to time in the life of a career police officer, a little stupidity must fall.
Inside the Temple of the Bed People -- a huge, flat, sunken living room that
featured exactly one style of furniture -- Lt. Det. Janet DiMarco put her left
elbow on a brass ball at the top of a headboard, and her chin thumped into her
left hand with an accompanying sigh. Three or four dozen people were flopped
out on beds of every description, a few snoozing, some eating lunch, and more
than a few eating each other. O, brother…!

DiMarco rolled one eye at Susan Drake, who had ceased breathing and was
swallowing hard and, unless given something else to do, was probably two snaps
from wetting the floor or assaulting a candlestick -- of which there were many,
since it was the principal light source in this Den of Inverticality.

"Susan -- you're drooling… Here -- take my rifle, be a good girl, and stand
guard… -- outside, Sergeant. And don't let me catch you with that zipper down,
capiche?"

Susan was crestfallen, but she obeyed eventually, which solved problem Number
One. Now, then… Archie and Fred. The boys from Banana Land. They were
seated in a giant square bed that had cushioned back support on all four sides,
like a couch that had mutated and cloned itself into a Posturpedic playpen. Fred
was yummering about disreputable candle and vibrator suppliers, four buxom
nudists were cuddled adoringly at his feet, and Archie was sitting with his legs
open, one arm over the back support, one knee bent, showing off for the
Grateful Nation and sipping champagne. He looked up at DiMarco and grinned.

"Come on in, babe! Plenty of room," Fred insisted. "Gloria, Phyllis, Bobbi, shove
over. Gimme a break, will ya, Louise? -- pester Archie for a while -- or better
yet, go get us another bottle of shampoo outta the fridge. This one's half empty.
And some pizza, if there is any. I tell you, Arch, nobody wants to cook anymore.
We have the absolutely laziest goddamn staff in the known universe. You know
how big that is? -- the known universe? Big. We're talking real big. Giga-
mega-google big!" The four playmates giggled in unison, and Archie
uncomfortably perceived the prickly possibility of being choked to death any
second by Lt. Det. Pumpkin. This was just not his day. A forlorn expression
crept across his handsome, boyish face as she approached.

"Excuse me, Mr. Wonderful," she purred, "-- did you happen to find out where
Whipple might be? This has been highly educational and informative about the
man I'm going to marry, but I'd like to get the job done and ask Clarence a few
questions, since Susie and I came all this way to pick his ass up in a body bag, if
necessary."

"Wow!" Fred ejaculated, before Archie could answer. "You got class, Arch!
She's great!"

DiMarco's eyes flashed briefly. "Shut up, Fred," she ordered. "I was talking
business, not pleasure. How about it, cupcake?"

It was a crossroads, a critical juncture in time. He saw that she wasn't mad, that
there was nothing to be mad about. Her hand laid across his, on the back of the
couch. Her brown eyes smiled gently, saying to him: it's okay, Harmon, I accept
everything you are and everything you once were and probably can't change. It's
no problem -- if you're straight with me, never lie to me, never hide anything from
me. It's still you and me -- permanent and unbreakable, because I'm your
woman, now and forever, darling. Even here. Even this.

"I don't know, dear," Archie answered. "He might be in the basement. We could
check."

She smiled and patted his hand. "That's okay. You stay and enjoy yourself.
Remember -- your sperm belongs to me, mister. Everything else is fair game,
provided you're ready to go when I am. Dinky got her clit stuck in the red zone,
and she's about as trustworthy as a bitch in heat, so I'm on a schedule, sort of,
before she jumps on the gardener or a garden hose or something furry -- and
she's supposed to be minding my 'equipment,' if you know what I mean. It's a
safety issue."

"Okay, Jan -- I'll go whenever you're ready," he nodded happily.

DiMarco nodded, smiled at the group, and made her way to the stairs. Hmm.
Torches. It was that kind of basement. Sure enough -- tied to a wall, his arms
and legs outstretched, the Chief Cashier was ready for interrogation. DiMarco
smacked a skinny, make-believe dominatrix in the nose with the back of her fist
and picked up her riding crop. The party girl fled, and DiMarco slammed shut a
studded dungeon door.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Whipple," she said cheerfully. "I'm from the government,
and I'm here to help."


Chapter 9: Probable Cause

City Attorney Cleve Barrymore shook his head in dismay. He scratched his
forehead, lost his train of thought, then shrugged. "Bury it," he proffered as a
solution.

Dr. Levine snorted at him. "Like hell. Fire me if you want to. But I'm not going to
hide anything. You ought to know better than that. Science doesn't go away
whenever it's inconvenient. Why am I even discussing this --?" she growled
bitterly, heaving her fat old frame from side to side, in an angry effort to stand up.

"Wait a minute, Julie," the prosecutor implored, to no avail. Chief Scientist
Levine stomped out of the office and slammed the door hard enough to bounce
the prosecutor's Panama hat from its brass peg. It flopped on the floor like an
indictment, and Cleve Barrymore slumped at his desk in despair. If what she said
was true -- no reason to doubt her -- they were all in deep shit. God knows what
might happen next.

Barrymore drew himself up, straight and clean. Don't jump to conclusions. It's
only a piece of evidence. It means nothing, in and of itself. It could be completely
innocent and irrelevant. It could have been planted. Just take it in stride. Due
process will sort everything out in the end. It always does. Deep breath. Now,
where was I?

Nowhere. His computer screen flashed another trio of dumb messages from the
front office. The case files on his desk were intensely dull, minor infractions of the
City Code. There was nothing pending in court, no real reason to be at work
today, except that Julie demanded to see him.

Cleve's big, square shoulders slumped again. This was ghastly, if true. It meant a
case for impeachment.

His secretary entered and squashed the brim of his hat on the floor, before she
realized that her foot was an unexpectedly lethal weapon. "Oh, darn it!" she
fretted, bending to pick up the fashion victim -- struggling valiantly to repair its
accidental damage. "I'm sorry, Cleve," she worried with a huge frown of guilt.
He watched her brush it, twist it, shape it with fussy, agile fingers, trying to mend
a permanent kink that chance had wrought.

The City Attorney rose and shuffled around his desk. Doreen looked up at him
briefly, sad and nervous about the fate of a hat. "It's alright," her boss said softly.
"It's my fault. Please. It's okay." She reluctantly put the wreckage in his
outstretched hand.

"I'm very sorry, I didn't see it."

"Me, too, Doreen. A lot of things I didn't see -- didn't want to see, I guess." He
slipped the hat firmly over a troubled, balding skull. "I'm going to see the Chief
Justice. I should be back around four. See if you can round up Harriman and
Elmore. I'd like to meet with them at four-thirty, here."

"Certainly, Mr. Barrymore. I'm very sorry about your hat."

In the garage, he watched Dennis hotfoot it to retrieve his ancient BMW.
Presently, it chugged to a halt at the elevator curb, and Barrymore maneuvered
behind the wheel, tossing his hat in the back seat, as if it should be forgotten,
unimportant in the grand scheme of things. But the car stalled, insisting that his
Grand Scheme wasn't delivering the goods. Auto parts had become as scarce as
cheap labor. The last time anybody took delivery of a new car was in 2022.
There was no solution, no workable fix to jump-start the U.S. economy,
although a dozen deals had been negotiated with the boys from Boston -- and
had promptly misfired -- because cash meant nothing to the thugs in California or
Michigan. The breakup of America into regional factions was an incurable, fatal
disease. Europe was already dead as an industrial society. Barrymore's broken
vehicle pointed emphatically to the first among countless corpses that stretched
from Munich to Motown. BMW had been raped and bled and bankrupted thirty
years ago. A ghoulish aftermarket gouger, based in Guadalajara, stopped
making sloppy Beamer parts last January. Might as well sell it for scrap. It was
worth more as raw steel.

Dennis opened the hood. He pulled and yanked. "Try it again, Mr. Barrymore!"

Nothing. Wouldn't even crank. Cli-click, click, pop.

Barrymore retrieved his dented hat, ripping the worn, cracked leather of the
front seat for the umpteenth time. The City Attorney was not a wealthy man.
Buying another car would be a painful and confusing ordeal. The money didn't
matter to him. If he wanted to be rich, Cleve Barrymore could have stayed in
private practice. J.L. Thomas & Co. practically begged him to stay. No, no, the
damn public good comes first. That's what lawyers are trained to do -- not to
feather their own happy-smiley cubicles at some predatory brokerage. "Don't be
stupid, Cleve," old J.L. clucked at him a dozen times in sardonic superiority. "It's
a seventy percent cut in pay, and the public don't give a shit about crime. It's
dumb to work for the City. Plead your ass off, make a fool of yourself in court
against the best brains in the profession, and probably lose every case!"

Well, so what? Somebody had to do it, brainy or not.

The City Attorney turned an old, wiggly knob and hauled a steel door open,
flooding the garage with blazing midday heat. He worried about the air
conditioning upstairs. Was Doreen comfortable? He worried about
unemployment in Guatemala. Did the new junta care enough to actually do
something about it? He worried about the traffic and dust and noise. How can
motorists function properly in this heat?

It was the City Attorney's job to worry -- in particular, whether there was
probable cause to prosecute. He withheld it. He resisted it, unless the police had
an airtight case -- a DiMarco case -- the kind that Cleve Barrymore couldn't lose,
because it was open and shut, every duck in a seamless row of proof, absolutely
beyond reasonable doubt. He doubted anyway. It was his duty, his professional
responsibility as the gatekeeper of police power, to doubt everything and
everyone -- to keep the name of Laissez Faire City above reproach and
synonymous with justice. Forty thousand people in the physical jurisdiction
depended on him to be vigilant, suspicious of false accusations. A couple million
on the Grid depended on him, too. Nine out of ten internet cases alleged fraud of
one kind or another. Few went to trial, thank God. It was always like opening a
can of poisonous worms, sorting out who promised what and who should've
known better.

The heat was unbearable, and Cleve Barrymore leaned against a shady wall. The
rattle and clatter of traffic in downtown Nosara nipped at his sense of purpose,
throbbed against his temple. Was this really necessary?

An allegation based on a few micrograms of DNA. Never stand up in court. It
means nothing, implies nothing. And yet -- whether he personally thought it
sensible or rash -- there was a rule that dictated what had to be done next, as
distasteful and humiliating as it was. He had to petition the Chief Justice to
appoint a special prosecutor and recuse himself from the Triple Peak case.
Damn it! Damn everything! -- and me, too! This can't possibly turn out right.

Cleveland A. Barrymore, K.R., loved only one thing. He had tried and failed at
marriage. He tried and failed at golf. Money meant nothing. The City was all. He
worked day and night to protect it, would have gladly given his life, if it had been
demanded. Now, there was nothing he could do. It was out of his hands. The
legal butchers and bastards would slither to take his place in court, probably a
hundred of them with imagined grudges against the Chief Executive.

Maybe I should resign? -- I could defend him, or help with discovery, or --

"Mr. Barrymore, are you alright?" a hard, familiar voice asked, shouting to be
heard over the rumble of a Harley that was stopped at the intersection. Janet
DiMarco's hot, black mane was pulled back in a knot. He barely recognized her
on the motorcycle. She kicked the stand, left the hog sputtering in traffic, and
sauntered over, studying Cleve Barrymore intently.

"Yes -- yes, Lieutenant -- I'm fine," he asserted.

She nodded. "Uh-huh. Are you waiting for somebody?"

It was impossible to lie to her. DiMarco had 20/20 bullshit detectors. "My car
broke down," he explained. "I have to go up the hill, to see your father."

She smiled gaily. "Okay. I'll take you. Plenty of time."

The way she drove, it was impossible not to grab her waist, then lock his arms
around her belly. They flew past the guards, dared the gate not to open, and
screeched to a halt at the Courthouse. As he rose to get off, she beamed a big
white smile that was framed by tanned, flawless perfection. "Say 'hi' to the old
goat for me, Cleve," she joked. "Tell him if he isn't at my wedding, Saturday, I'm
gonna blow up the Courthouse. You, too, Mr. Law and Order. It'll be the first
and last time I marry anybody for the public good. Should be quite a show!" she
laughed.

Barrymore tried to reply with a grin, but only achieved a weak grimmace as he
waved goodbye. DiMarco pushed her sunglasses back to the top of her nose
and roared away, down the hill and back to Nosara. What on earth was the
matter with Barrymore? -- she puzzled. The heat? Maybe. But that didn't explain
it. Cleve had a farm outside Nicoya; he loved working outdoors, no matter how
hot it was in the dry season. Something's up. Something big enough to put the
C.A. in a trick bag. I should mention it to Archie. Or Audrey, if she's back on
duty and in the mood to listen. Dior can wait. They're open until four, I think.

DiMarco leaned through the gentle, sloping curve of Municipal Drive, fanning
herself in the dull breeze of slow motion. Somebody or something was leaning on
"Clean Cleve" Barrymore, the one guy she trusted. It was pointless trying to
question him about it -- whatever it was. The City Attorney never talked, never
gave her a dime's worth of dope about anything, and he had a perfectly
expressionless poker face, like a potbelly stove. That's why it mattered. If Cleve
was under the gun, it was something pretty gnarly.

Julie might know.

It was a pain in the butt, parking at Atlantis Memorial Medical Center. They had
committed every architectural crime known to committees. The satellite lots were
too small -- to encourage mass transit that nobody used. The Shuttle broke down
on a daily basis, so everybody walked to work. Speed bumps cracked and
crumbled every twenty yards, making life stupid, slow, and painful. That's how
ambulances arrived.

DiMarco lept a curb and chugged toward the staff entrance. She got a few
glances, but no serious opposition. In uniform or not, they knew who she was.
The Harley rolled to a squeaky stop, outside Julie Levine's office window.
Brainy Butt was at her desk. She twisted to glance over her shoulder angrily,
briefly holding DiMarco's gaze like an iron vise. Hmm. Something's up -- bigtime.
Okay, Julie, lay it on me.

DiMarco's boot heels ricocheted down the tile corridor, warning others not to
intrude. She parked her sunglasses in the ruffle of her tube top and shook the
knot out of her hair. It fell on one shoulder, like a mailed hood, too thick to cut
with an axe. DiMarco fluffed it out. It was cold enough to catch pneumonia in
here. Your tax dollars at work, spewing refrigeration from boxy fans that chilled
half of Nosara when somebody pushed a button to yawn open an exterior door
-- which happened every second like clockwork in Costa Rica's busiest hospital.
The helipad traffic was so hectic, they decided to build another one last year.
Plans were stuck somewhere in a subcommittee.

Half a dozen badly-marked corridors led her through the maze of Radiology,
Gift Shop, Outpatient, Cafeteria, ER, and Morgue. The Lab door was open.

"Go away!"

DiMarco put her hands on her hips, waiting for act two.

"I'm busy," the fat lady simpered. "This isn't a good time to talk."

"About what?" DiMarco prompted, as she approached and sat quietly in a dusty
chair at Dr. Levine's side, forcing the issue and naming it.

Beads of sweat appeared on Julie's forehead and her pulse rate was up.
DiMarco guessed it was nervousness, nothing life threatening. "What's going on,
doc?" she asked quietly. "First, Cleve -- now you. Or, do you think I can't see
the obvious, anymore?"

Dr. Levine stuck her chin out angrily. "No. I don't think you can see the
obvious."

"What does that mean?"

It came like an army, rushing to kill people and break things. "You idiot!" Dr.
Levine cried in anguish, refusing to look at Lt. DiMarco, "-- you stupid fucking
whore! Acting like a brainless teenager… What do you think this is? A biology
experiment? Boy meets girl? Ken and Barbie live happily ever after? DiMarco,
you're so full of shit, now, that you have no business in this office or in my
presence ever again. Just get out! I never want to see you ever again!" There
were tears in Julie's eyes, threatening to spill in twin rivers down her white, fleshy
face. Maybe it was best. DiMarco had never seen her cry before. Women have
to cry. It was killing Julie, that she never felt anything -- until now.

Janet reached to touch her forearm in reassurance.

Levine jerked the arm out of reach. "Don't touch me!" she shouted.

"Okay… what's the matter?"

"You've changed," her friend answered bitterly, still refusing to hold her glance,
still squirming under an intense moral pressure of some kind. "Turned pussyface
and ran for the punchbowl. Left me here on my own. Thanks a lot. Now, get
out, or I'll call security!"

It was a hollow threat, and Julie knew it. DiMarco could wipe the floor with
whoever happened to be snoring at the Security desk -- if anyone was there at
all. DiMarco let a few moments pass, leaning back in her chair to take the
pressure off. Julie Levine wiped her eyes, fumbled with a tissue box, and honked
loudly into a cheap, white weave that tore on contact. More moments came and
went. Sometimes, all we can do for friends is to be there with them, let them see
some courage to face life together.

"Are you ready to talk about it?" DiMarco asked gently.

"No. I don't talk to tramps… or civilians!"

"What does that mean?"

Brainy Butt's mammoth intelligence suddenly wheeled at her, no longer broken
by emotion. "Shut up! Listen to me -- I'm not going to say this twice. You don't
give a shit about me or Cubby or any of us, since you started playing house with
that crook. Yes -- crook! -- and maybe worse. He's got you right where he
wants you, Janet, and you're too fucking lovesick to see it. 'The moon in June' --
like duty is an optional accessory at the Looters Ball. No, it hasn't occurred to
you, has it? That Cubby is about an inch from a nervous breakdown, I haven't
seen you for a week, and Audrey had to have her jaw wired shut because of that
bastard. He'll leave you in a heartbeat. You think he loves you? Right. Like tigers
love goats! You stupid, stupid bitch. You walked out on everyone. I got a call
from Sanders yesterday. The day shift is down to nine uniformed and two
detectives, Sal Miller and somebody named Bland, who barely made it out of
the Academy."

DiMarco growled, "You don't know what you're talking about."

"Oh, I don't, huh? Have you made any progress on the case, Lieutenant?"

No answer.

"Well, I have. Kellogg ordered those killings."

DiMarco shot to her feet, ready to slap her face. Levine read the intention and
braced herself for a beating. "-- and Seldon did the dirty work! Go ahead, hit
me! You've broken every other rule in the book, thrown away every friend you
ever had for that bastard playboy who thinks he's God -- go ahead, Blackie!
Can't handle the truth, can you? Not if your lover is a liar and fake who's using
you -- you dumb cunt!"

DiMarco turned away.

"Here!" Brainy Butt screamed at her back. "Here's the proof. Take it. Throw it in
the fucking ocean. I'm sure that's what he'll tell you do next. Bury the evidence.
DNA is DNA, unless you play fast and loose, because you're in love with him!
and who gives a shit about the law?"

DiMarco headed for the door, and Chief Scientist Levine flew after her,
launched from her chair like a raging hippo. "He was at the scene. It was his
sunglasses you fished out of the pool! It was his facial hair on the mirror. I can
prove it!… You've been had, Blackie. If you marry that bastard, I'll never speak
to you again. I mean it!…"

She was gone, turned a corner, disappeared.

And Julie Levine wanted her back. Needed her to come back. Her office -- her
life -- was empty without DiMarco, no reason to stay, no reason to go anywhere
or want anything. And now… oh, Lord, what have I done? Put a fuse in a
firebomb that… oh, God, I'm so stupid! Why couldn't I just keep my fucking
mouth shut? Why didn't I just bury it, like Cleve told me to?… Oh, shit!…

She raced back to her desk and slammed the speed dial for 911.


Chapter 10: Chain of Command

Everywhere Col. Emmett Seldon marched, he heard the sound of a dirge, and
the bright, straight crease of his dress grays snapped with elegant precision.

The commander of Special Force took no special notice of his surroundings --
not even at Fortress HQ, the seat of all power. Seldon had no personal life, and
therefore, he saw nothing. It meant nothing. The universe was indifferent. He was
officer of the day, every day, even in sleep. The years and minutes of life were
divided into tasks that Col. Seldon had no power to alter or question. He
marched through time unconscious of sorrow or joy. Emotion was the
vanquished enemy of a duty officer. It always is.

Seldon's escort were two reliable men of long service. They moved as a single
organism. Two additional junior officers, required for this mission, marched in
step at a respectful distance in rank. Col. Seldon took their existence for
granted. If not them, then someone else. No one is irreplaceable. Not even me,
he thought.

Without gesture or command, the point men calmly turned to guard, and Col.
Emmett Seldon removed his spotless, gleaming braided hat, sweeping it under
his left arm in a simple, automatic action that consumed no energy and meant
nothing. He briefly saluted the Flag and the Chief Executive, both of them
located at the far end of a long conference table. He noted that Fitzroy,
Executive Adjutant, and a secretary flanked Dr. Kellogg -- apparently briefing
the Chief on the current situation in Japan. Col. Seldon mentally nodded with
approval. Duty is made easier by competent comrades.

"Good evening, sir."

"Good evening, Colonel -- please sit over here, so we don't have to shout at
each other… Go ahead, Marty, finish what you were saying."

The young adjutant rambled in a nasal drone. He pointed at maps and charts,
dribbling to an indistinct conclusion that repeatedly described the obvious. "I
see," Kellogg nodded. "Thank you. Okay, Colonel, let's have the bad news."

The commander saw nothing, felt nothing. "Yes, sir," he replied. "I can confirm
that our team in Los Angeles failed, probably captured or killed in action.
Although I repeat for the record that I'm opposed to Operation Rodeo, as an
unnecessary risk that clouds the chain of command, we're ready to support you
in the air and on the ground -- with the possible exception of mainland Mexico
and South Texas. The Falcon is being reconfigured, as discussed. It will be
ready at 05:00, as planned. My staff reports that all of the equipment and
personnel are in place for the wedding and reception. I have no reason to doubt
them. It's a fairly routine matter -- although, we obviously had to strip the border
patrols to do it. Eagle's Nest has been informed. They replied through channels
that it was no problem, and they'll adjust their civilian duty rosters accordingly.
There has been good cooperation all 'round. No complaints that I'm aware of.
Unless you decide to change something at the last minute, we're buttoned up."

Kellogg nodded. "Good. Did you find suitable people for Magpie?"

Col. Seldon softened his brow with the comfort of a simple question. He
registered the implicit doubt indifferently, having anticipated it. "Yes, sir. They're
waiting outside."

"Bring them in, please."

The junior officers were summoned and paraded, approved, thanked for
voluntering, and dismissed with a sharp salute. The Chief Executive also
dismissed his adjutant and the secretary. Waiting for the room to empty, he
faced Seldon, his forearms locked in a 'v' and hands clasped together on the
polished rosewood conference table -- as if their work held no joy -- then, he
smiled and leaned back in his chair, a big brown leather swivel that tilted
whenever Harmon Kellogg felt confident about the future. There was a big,
warm-hearted grin on his face. The Chief Executive of Laissez Faire City
casually crossed his legs, displaying a new pair of Italian kid leather loafers.

"Don't worry, Em -- I'm not going to do anything stupid."

Seldon remained unmoved. There was no reason to move. Sir Harmon's
willingness to gamble was part of the political landscape. He was an asshole to
make an issue of it, making light of danger. But he always did. "You're risking
your life for no reason," Col. Seldon retorted with rising anger. "Those are the
facts, Simon. If you had any sense, you'd leave this to me."

Kellogg nodded amiably in agreement. "Yep. That's true."

"It's not your job. Especially now."

"Because of Janet?"

The word whizzed like a bullet to the brain. Seldon's body clenched, every
muscle in taut reaction to a deadly threat. It was the threat of emotion. The
vanquished prisoner who wouldn't die. He said nothing. He felt nothing. He was
nothing. "No, sir," Seldon abruptly bit, in the cold language of duty, like snapping
steel chains with his bare teeth.

"Ouch," the Chief Executive observed, not unkindly.

The two old comrades remained silent for a long time -- one sad, the other in
denial of it and praying to be released as quick as possible.

"Relax, Emmett," the Chief finally offered. "We don't have to discuss it."

"Discuss what?"

Seldon knew it was a mistake, the instant he heard himself say it. Simon lived by
one rule, set in stone: "No one gets to stay here by faking reality in any
manner whatsoever." Pretending to forget the thread of conversation was
faking reality. Col. Seldon began to perspire. It was suddenly hot in this room.
The thick vented air had no oxygen.

"You want to be relieved of duty?"

"No, sir."

"You want to make an exception -- for yourself?"

"No, sir."

The Commander-In-Chief considered this response, weighing what it meant. He
deftly reached behind the lapel of his tuxedo jacket and pulled out a heavy 9mm
automatic, tossing its thorny weight on the conference table, marring the liquid
mirror of its surface. The gun slid to a stop in front of Seldon, muzzle pointed
back at its owner. "Life is a choice, Emmett," his friend remarked sternly. "My
life… your life… her life… the City and everyone in it. Pick it up. Point it at me.
It's loaded. The safety's off, no printlock. I hate those damn things. Don't work
half the time when you need to shoot someone. Aim at my nose."

Col. Emmett Seldon aimed the weapon at the Chief Executive. He was a target
now, an anonymous gestalt. A rich civilian. A tycoon in a black tuxedo, with
eyes that sparkled like lasers, clean and calm and ripe with certainty.

"I'm going to marry your ex-wife, Emmett. She's mine. I took her from you,
because you never deserved her, didn't give yourself to her, never saw her as an
equal in life."

"That's not true…" Seldon stalled, voice cracking and choked, unable to hold his
hand steady, trembling with emotional rage and pain. There was no air in this
room. He wanted to scream. He wanted to die. Evil swarmed through the tightly
partitioned caverns of his mind, racing to a desperate climax. No. No. No.
No…!

A distant voice commanded, "Give me back the gun, Emmett -- or use it. There
is no third choice. Live free or die."

He heard that before, a thousand times in battle. Live free or die. He owed
Simon his life. It was his life, not mine. The gun was his. The City was his by right
-- by everything that right was or ever could be. Now, Janet was his, too. They
deserved each other, just as men longed for the best in other men and cherish the
brave above all. The facts were like a life preserver, thrown by a lifeguard to a
drowning man. Seldon began to weep, covering his face with his left hand. The
gun was suddenly too heavy to support. His right arm buckled under its weight
and he swung it away, not confident about its safety, its danger to human life. His
life. Legend's life. The life he worshipped and wanted to serve -- and feared
most of all. He persevered in duty until the 9mm rested safely on the table,
pointed at a wall of soft blue fabric. Then he wept openly and shamelessly, like a
grieving woman, both hands at his face, incapable of using his eyes.

The voice was near enough to touch. "You haven't done anything wrong,
Emmett. No one wants to be who they are. I don't care who it is. All we get is
the life we're given, the time and place, a handful of raw potential and a few
years to make something of it. We lived through a lot, you and I. Took every bit
of courage we had. You, more than me -- because I don't seem to care about
danger. I like it. You never did. You hated it, hated seeing me… Do you
remember that night at the Canal? There was no way out. We were dead -- until
I 'surrendered' and did my little song and dance act. You trusted me then. I
want you to trust me now. I'm taking personal command of Rodeo, because
you'll try to blast your way in there with overwhelming force -- and end up dead.
I want you to stay here and mind the store. That's an order."

The Chief's voice took no notice of his grief, ignored the vulnerability confessed
by tears and snot and coughing into a neatly-pressed handkerchief that was
changed daily and rarely used. Seldon recovered enough to object. "Your father
said…"

"Forget what my father said. He's dead, Emmett. It's you and me -- and Janet.
We're the only ones left. It's up to us. And, unless you're prepared to kill me, I
give the orders, Colonel. That's the way it is."

Seldon nodded, and he saw that the interview was over, it was over the minute
he came here. There can only be one Sovereign in law, only one
Commander-In-Chief.

Col. Seldon straightened his uniform as he rose to salute. "Yes, sir," he said with
openly personal meaning, something that was settled long ago. "Thank you, sir."

"I want you to carry on, Emmett. There's nothing wrong with your judgment.
You have command of the City at 05:00, reporting to the Chief Justice or his
deputy, if necessary. Please don't burn the place to the ground while I'm on my
'honeymoon'…"

"No, sir."

"…I don't want any more trouble than I already have."

"Yes, sir. I understand."

"Okay. That's all."

The commander dropped his salute and departed. When one door closed,
another burst open and Fitzroy reappeared -- collar askew, shirt half out of his
pants, and covered in sweat. He looked like a child who spent the last few
minutes in a rollercoaster. "Jesus fucking Christ, boss!" he exclaimed. "You
had everyone in the War Room in a complete fucking panic! I had to hold back
the entire Guard!"

"Okay, Marty, okay… just hold it down. And get some new adjectives, please."

"Fucking hell," the adjutant grumbled, slamming the door on his way out. The
Chief Executive winced at the crash of sound -- it was too much like the
defeaning report of his 9mm. It was still sitting on the conference table. He
picked it up, thought about L.A., and slipped the gun back in its holster, where it
belonged. We don't get to pick the life we have.

She was waiting for him, listening to someone on a phone handset, her raven
mane in a braid, split white lace negligee and white stiletto sandals. Archie
stopped at the door like a man in awe of a spacecraft or a live volcano. She
smiled at him, beckoned him to come closer, and covered her handset briefly to
report, "I won't be long."

Take your time, beautiful -- Archie sighed to himself with vast resignation. He
shrugged off his jacket, pecked at the black tie. It was hopeless. She knew she
was beautiful, and she held nothing back, like a broadside from a fleet of Russian
cruisers. Maybe she was part Russian. It was entirely possible. She didn't look
like or behave anything like her father -- that was for sure. Interesting theory.
Explains a lot.

"You're quite right, Mr. Wilson," she was saying, trying to end the call. "I will
certainly tell Archie, the minute he gets back from Tierra del Fuego. Good-bye!"
she chirped, and promptly touched the Off button. "-- moron!"

"Doug Wilson?"

She rose to greet him, standing gracefully and crossing the room in slow, straight
arcs of majestic cat-like strength. "Yeah. The Merchants Association doesn't
want to stop the repaving of Center Avenue outside the Hilton, Saturday, and
they strongly intimated that you were not overly bright, picking the Hilton instead
of Rogers Memorial Hall for the reception. I told him I agreed completely that
you're not overly bright. Oooh… I do like a man with a shoulder holster, you
rogue." She looped her arms through his, kissed him very briefly -- just barely
brushing her soft, wide lips against his. "Fuck me right here on the floor," she
dared him. "Or bend me over the back of the couch and use your belt."

Archie frowned. "We have to pack."

"Uh-huh."

"And we have to get up at three."

"What time is it now?"

"Eleven-thirty."

"Hmm… Okay. C'est le guerre. Are you going to call Wilson back? He's in a
snit."

"Yeah." The call went through and Archie said what was necessary: "I like the
Hilton. I'm planning on swimming naked in the lobby fountain. The torn-up street
is symbolic of my passionate devotion and undying commitment to my child
bride, who's only fourteen and a half and has a hairlip. Goodbye!"

DiMarco looked at him quizzically. Archie was a mess. He was never irate,
normally. He came to sit beside her on the couch -- struggled out of his harness
and tossed it on the floor. She beckoned him kinesthetically, and he stretched
out full-length, head in her lap for scratches. Her new acrylic nails touched down
in his hair, cleaning him of worry.

"Mind if I ask a few questions while I do this?"

"Uuh…"

"What happened to the dog at Triple Peak?"

"Poisoned… that's why I cleared out. Emmett said 'Better safe than sorry'."

"He was right."

"Mm."

"Julie's got you at the scene. DNA evidence."

"Haa."

"It might not be 'haa,' if Cleve goes to my dad with it."

"You think he will?"

"I think he has."

Her long, straight fingers flexed slowly and rhythmically, gliding through his thick
brown hair, parting it in five streams of pleasure that circled from the back of his
ear, across his scalp to the crown of his head, then chose a new point of attack,
another langorous, loving caress with razor-sharp nails. DiMarco smiled,
unbuttoning his shirt and contemplating with pleasure the result of gliding another
set of dextrous hard sharp things across his loins. There's not a man in the world
who won't respond to long nails teasing his crotch. Sorry, Archie. Tired or not,
you're going to make me pregnant. It's written in the stars, my darling, darling
prince. No matter what happens next to either of us. It's our destiny… and duty.

He rose and took her by the hand in a single curve of motion, and, wordlessly,
they walked as one to their bed amid the galaxies and the heavens, needing
nothing but happiness and privacy, wanting nothing more than a few hours of
peace. The air was cleansed and scented by shifting breezes that herald a storm,
and a new infant moon howled that might makes love.


Chapter 11: The Rule of Law

A dull ache in her face and especially her eyes said that DiMarco needed sleep
and wasn't going to get any in the foreseeable future. The thought was revolting.

Or maybe the lurch and swing of the limo on a dirt road was revolting. She was
sick to her stomach, anyway. Damn this life. I hate it. Why can't we have a nice,
peaceful private life, like normal people? Just plain vanilla citizens. I want to be a
civilian, she heard herself wishing silently -- the first time that 'private life' had
dawned on DiMarco as a meaningful option. Never face another crisis. Never
draw another weapon. Never make another arrest. Just live. Privately.

Archie looked like shit. His clothes were cockeyed, his eyes were ringed with
fatigue, and he sat slumped next to her in the car's plush upholstery like a sack of
old potatoes. Hmph. Mr. Superman. Gonna do the impossible. Can't even get to
the airport without a driver and a half dozen people to wake him up at 3:00 a.m.
and basically carry us to the car. Maybe he's not as smart as I think he is.

"Archie?"

No answer. She poked him in the ribs -- twice.

"Ow… what's the matter with you?" he snapped angrily.

"Nothing. I was going to ask you the same thing. Are you alright?"

"Yeah. Just leave me alone," he grumped, turning away. "I'm trying to sleep. It's
a half hour to town… Otto! -- if she pokes me again, stop the car and throw
her out!"

Otto's round, skeptical face in the mirror glanced briefly at Lady Janet with
concern, then sympathy. He returned to the pressing business of driving,
wheeling them through a series of sharp corners, worn from intimate knowledge
and saddened by it. Otto drove two generations of this clan. He'd seen a lot of
sacrifice. She never discussed it with him, but it was obvious and acknowledged
in their acquaintance. Otto was a standard bearer, an extended fortress that
followed Archie and flew the family coat of arms wherever he traveled by
armored limo. It was a grim duty on nights like tonight, racing to another dance
with death.

I hate this, she repeated to herself. It was becoming a mental loop... Quit
complaining! Wake up. Don't get personally involved with these people. Be a
cop. Stay a cop.

DiMarco rolled her shoulders and twisted her torso to get the blood moving. She
patted the pockets of her jumpsuit. Phone. Cigarettes. Lighter. Spare clip.
Chewing gum and energy bars. She hiked her gunbelt to a new position and
pulled at the inseam of her pant legs, determined to find a comfortable
arrangement. She flipped her hair back, pulled a scrunchy from her back pocket,
and knotted it twice into a rough, bobbed ponytail. Reporting for duty, ma'am.
4:07 a.m. Graveyard shift -- the worst of the worst, two or three babes to patrol
an area the size of Los Angeles. Hmph. That reminds me: I need to study the
datamap again. It has a VR option. I should do a serious tour of L.A. by laptop
en route -- provided that Archie is competent to fly the damn airplane.

His incorrigible vanity suddenly bit her like a shark. God damn him. There was
no logical reason for Archie to fly himself -- or to go on this mission at all --
except his idiotic, stubborn insistence on personal responsibility. Damn him, she
fumed. It's wonderful and right -- and totally unnecessary. The Chief Executive
is too important to… STOP IT! STOP IT! STOP IT!… Leave Archie alone.
It's his life to spend, or throw away, or not. So you're mad. Okay. Mad about
what exactly? Forget Archie. He's not your problem.

She pressed a button and fresh cool air pummeled her face from an open
window. She leaned into it, draping her arm on the car door, living firsthand and
free. The job of lighting a cigarette was a major challenge -- two improvised
strategies that sent a jet of flame between cupped fingers, finally succeeding
against the elements. DiMarco could smoke a Camel in a hurricane if she felt like
it, and the victory sat calmly certain in her mind. However, it also made her
choke -- and the cough intersected another certainty. She was pregnant. She
knew it the instant it happened. Smoking cigarettes had to stop. Fair enough, she
decided. If we get back in one piece, I'll quit.

So, we're back to the same question. Why do this? Because it's my duty.
Hmph. You'd think that twelve years would be enough, especially now.

No.

I'm not resigning. I knew the price when I took the oath. Nothing's changed --
kid or no kid. Protect and serve. Period. End of discussion.

A motorcycle escort picked them up and raced ahead, blanking the traffic lights,
sirens screaming. They shot through the Verdi Tunnel and emerged on Airport
Drive, hopping through a speed bump that slammed the suspension, but wasn't
enough to wake Archie in the back seat. That's the unreal beauty of wealth. You
don't feel the shocks.

Gates opened. The deathly silence of Nosara International at 4:33 a.m. was a
statement of right. Archie owned the airport. It was his to use, even while he
snored in the back seat of a black Special Force limousine. The car whisked
them to Hangar Four, slowing to a crawl that rolled quietly over the tarmac and
stopped.

DiMarco got out and returned a salute. "He's asleep. Give me a couple minutes,
and I'll wake him up. Is the plane fueled and ready to go?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Alright. Tell the tower to stand by. Is there a washroom nearby?"

"Yes, ma'am -- right over there, at the office."

"Thanks."

She glanced at her wristwatch when she returned. 4:41. Time to rock and roll.
DiMarco slid back in the car, studied him for a few seconds, wished a prayer,
then spoke his name. His eyebrows twitched, because it sounded like an order.
She said it again, and Archie came around. He saw the deep blue fabric of the
car's interior and the jet black cover of night, studded with hard points of light
that hurt. "Okay… I'm awake," he said quietly, in a somber, unguarded moment.
"Let's go."

"The rest room is over there," she indicated.

"Okay. Two minutes," Archie nodded, yawning. Then he remembered who she
was -- and smiled at her. "Good morning, dear," he winked.

There was time enough to watch Otto and the ground crew hustle their luggage
on board; time enough to wander away to a fence and smoke another cigarette;
time enough to say goodbye -- to Cubby, to Julie, to everyone and everything.
Then Archie was back, calling her to get on board, the bus was leaving. The
whine of engines and the first hint of dawn tore the thread of broody doom,
pulling DiMarco forward and fanning the air she breathed -- a kind of battle cry,
the thrill of urgent purpose. Maybe this was right and best. Live life to the hilt. All
or nothing.

"What are you doing over there?" she worried in the cockpit.

"It's French. Everything's backward," he explained. "Tower, this is City One.
Ready to roll out… Buckle up, babe. I'm cleared to go." The Falcon roared hot
gas at the fence, and they bounced over an old section of pavement, heading for
21 Left.

Janet studied the instruments and controls. Never a great flier, at least she knew
the basics. Fuel, temperature, pressure. Autopilot. Chaff. Dopler and FLIR.
Landing gear. Archie's hand on the throttles. A glance at the man she loved.
Then they swung through the corner, and Archie pushed them back in the chairs,
hurling the jet into space like a sleek white dart. The gear came up over ocean
and pink pearly dawn.

"Roger, Coastal, you have two away. Uh… let's use 1320, please. Rendezvous
off Tamarindo in three or four minutes. I'll cruise as slowly as I can…
Understood. City One, standing by on 1320."

She picked up a headset, taking her time, no eagerness to interfere. Archie was
talking to a pair of F-16s that launched from Liberia -- the City's entire air force,
apart from an old Cessna and two Cobras that were grounded for parts. If she
understood the problem correctly, the only solution was to make one complete
helicopter out of two. Presently, the noisy fighters swung in formation, and
Archie kicked the Falcon into top trim. He entered the first dogleg coordinates,
leveled out at 18,000 feet, and invoked the autopilot.

"What's for breakfast?" he yawned.

"I'll look… ham and cheese, BBQ beef, tuna salad, orange juice, coffee.
Ooops, bagels. You want to argue with a bagel, cream cheese, salmon, and
onions?"

"BBQ beef."

Just as messy. DiMarco fished a linen napkin from the hamper and stuck it in his
open collar. "Please don't get it on your pants," she admonished. When its
wrapper had been safely stowed, she offered his sandwich on another big white
monogrammed blanket.

"I see you have the highest possible confidence in my table manners," he
quipped.

They ate in silence. Coffee came next, an agreement not to speak. There was
nothing to say, except that she was frightened and it was his fault. The cockpit
seemed like nicely decorated coffin with windows.

He cleared his throat to speak. "By the way, I don't have any money."

"What?"

"Well, it's that darn Knighthood, you know. Chastity and poverty and whatnot.
Uh… how much do you earn as a police detective, dear?"

She blinked at him. "What on earth are you talking about, Archie?"

He scratched his ear and studied the sky. "I resigned. I'm a private citizen now.
Unemployed. Driving a stolen plane, one could argue. Anyway, I never
personally owned anything, and the Fortress was bequeathed to the City when
my father… uh… died." Archie tapped his fingers on the styrofoam cup in his
hands, then lifted it for a bitterly cold swig of coffee. "Why say 'he died'?"
Archie wondered aloud. "He didn't just die. He was murdered. Killed by
Trabucco -- either personally, or by one of his men. That's why I have a personal
interest in what happens to the City. My father gave his life -- as your mother
gave hers, Janet -- to keep the City free. Nevermind. I'm just making
conversation. Did you study the datamap of L.A.?"

Janet nodded, without looking at him. He saw a distant, miniature mental battle
flick across her eyebrows. She raised her head and spoke carefully. "I want to
talk about Cubby. If I call in the next few minutes, I can probably catch her at
the ranch -- tell her not to go, and also tell her why. I understand why you don't
want me to do that, and I trust you, Archie. I trust you all the way to the ground
-- yes, even that. But you don't understand. She's my partner. I can't lie to my
partner, or let her be deceived, for any reason. Not even me. Loving you and
trusting you doesn't change the law."

Archie looked down at his empty cup. "The law…" he mused.

"Don't make fun of it."

"I'm not. I'm thinking of my Noble Brothers -- half of them wanted to throw me
in irons, so I couldn't leave, and the other half wanted rid of me, so they could
argue about who's earned the exalted privilege of replacing me."

"What was decided?"

"Nothing. It was tabled until I return -- or don't return." Archie nodded at the
wingman visible at three o'clock. "These guys have to turn back soon. We're
unescorted until we get to Baja. Probably a good idea to go low, 500 feet or so,
hug the ocean."

"I want to call Cubby."

He remained silent, digging in the basement of his knowledge to dust off
something that hadn't been discussed in a long time. Its integration was a
conscious awareness. But the proofs and premises took a while to bubble up.
"Janet," he offered, "I'm the legal sovereign -- or was, until 5 a.m. today. It's not
like being a citizen or even an officer of the court. The courts and I stand
constitutionally equal. I can be impeached or tried like a criminal -- after the fact
-- if it's proved that I did something actionable. But law can't proscribe the
liberty of a private citizen, much less the sovereign of Laissez Faire City.
Technically, I'm your boss."

"You mean you were. You said you resigned."

Archie nodded. "Uh-huh. Past tense."

"Did you tell my father that you resigned?"

Archie shook his head. "No. I lie all the time. It's called diplomacy. I have to
take the weight for this one. It's me they're after. It's me they'll get -- both
barrels. All you have to do is guard the plane when we land in Palmdale. If I'm
not back in twelve hours, Skinny has orders to fly you out… Roger, Able One
Six, thank you, sir. See you back at the ranch. City One."

DiMarco watched him take the controls and cut the autopilot. Archie pulled
back gently on the throttles, and they went into a slow descent, turning toward
the open sea. "Did you get a declaration of war?" she queried.

"You mean, from the Knighthood, or from the Court?"

"Anyone," she said stolidly.

"No."

"Did you tell your mother what you intended to do in L.A.?"

Archie shook his head.

"And you lied to me. Said I was going to guard you, not the plane."

Archie stonewalled, refusing to answer. When he did, it sounded like a grunt to a
bad dentist, through a mouthful of cotton: "I wanted you with me -- as long as
possible."

Two seconds later, the verdict was in. It required two full seconds in honor of
something that was sacred and no longer important. "You're under arrest," Lt.
DiMarco ordered. "Turn this crate around, Kellogg. We're going back."

His eyes locked hers in disbelief.

"You heard me. Turn the fucking plane around." Her hand hammered the No. 3
throttle shut, killing the engine it served. The Falcon wobbled to a steep dive and
almost stalled. Archie screamed and fought for control. She screamed back at
him: "Either fly a course for Nosara, or I'll knock you the fuck out and fly it
myself. Level off. Now, turn, Kellogg. That's an order. Last chance. Nosara,
this is City One."

"City One, Nosara Tower."

"I need a landline, priority one to the Chief Justice. Wake him up if necessary."

"Uh, roger, City One… stand by."

"Janet, I --"

"Shut up, Archie. I told you, you're under arrest."

"City One, Nosara Tower. Ready with your call. The Chief Justice is on the
line," the radio operator announced -- followed by a grouchy baritone. "Janet!
What the hell is going on?" her father barked down a scratchy line.

"Daddy, I've got Simon Legend in custody, somewhere over Nicaragua. He was
attempting to leave the jurisdiction, headed for L.A. to kill Presidente Trabucco."

"What?!"

"You heard me. I want a writ of extradition, so Trabucco stands trial. Will you
sign it?"

"You're supposed to be getting married today! Not flying off to…"

"Just yes or no, Your Honor, god damn it!"

"Trabucco? Well… certainly. As far as I'm concerned, the man is a tyrant
and a war criminal. But, Janet-"

"Thanks, Dad. City One out."

The No. 3 engine had been restarted, and Archie looked at her sullenly, waiting
for the next hammerblow. He was almost at the point of tears.

"Don't look so shocked," she glowered back at him. "When you fuck up, you
pay the penalty. Okay -- you can turn around again for L.A., provided you keep
in mind that you're in custody as my prisoner. We're not going to kill anyone,
unless he forcibly resists arrest and extradition -- and that's my call, Archie, not
yours. Got it? Nobody murders anyone on my watch. Kidnap, yes. Murder, no."

He wouldn't speak and wouldn't turn the plane.

"Oh, for heaven's sake, Archie, quit moping. This is part of being married. Oh! --
I forgot. You've never been married before. When husbands lie to wives, and it
always happens eventually, they get their asses kicked. How old are you, by the
way?"

"Thirty-four," he grumbled.

"Well, that explains everything. Not only am I not a hothead, like you are, but
I'm also four or five years older, and I'm female. So, get used to it. You aren't
the sovereign any more. You quit, remember? You're a citizen. Whole different
ballgame. That's why God created cops -- to keep rats like you alive, which is
precisely what I'm going to do, so you can go back to work Monday morning as
Chief Executive of Laissez Faire City instead of chief plant food in a shallow
grave under an offramp in Glendale. See? -- I even know the lingo. Never been
there before in my life, but I memorized every surface street from Reseda to
Redondo Beach. I probably know L.A. better than you do."

Archie relented, shrugged, and reluctantly banked the Falcon in a circle, turning
back in the direction of Baja California. "You probably do," he admitted. "I've
never been to Los Angeles before."

Janet's right hand rose to catch her forehead as it fell forward, victim of another
Archie Headache. Was there no limit to this guy's stupidity? Sexy as the devil,
looks that made her gasp in awe, and rich as sin. Why on earth couldn't Archie
be a nice, sane, boring bookkeeper, as advertised?

"Jan?"

"What?" she barked at him.

He huffed back: "Huh! -- nevermind."

She took a deep breath, held it briefly, and exhaled completely. "Okay, Archie,
I'm sorry. What did you want to say?"

He yielded, sensing that she needed him. "Well… I wanted to ask how you felt
about… uh… being married to a prisoner."

She shrugged. "My husband right or wrong. Except we aren't married yet. Or,
were you planning on having Skinny marry us during a mortar attack, whoever
'Skinny' is?"

"My cousin. His real name is Leroy."

"Hm. Your cousin Leroy."

"Don't change the subject."

"Okay -- you want to be married to a senior police officer?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Very well. Do you take me as your lawfully wedded wife?"

"I do."

"And I take you as my lawfully wedded husband. Congratulations, you may now
set the autopilot," she smiled, suppressing a laugh. Archie got the message and
grinned in reply. They sailed through the clouds and gently settled into a
wave-hopping altitude of 485 feet above sea level, fifty miles from shore. The
Falcon flew itself, and the Happy Couple adjourned to the main cabin for a
celebratory toast of nonalcholic orange juice on the sofa. "Be gentle with me,"
she teased.


Chapter 12: As Seen on TV

This is City News. In Lebanon, warring Syrian peacekeeping
troops and Christian Phalangists had their battle interrupted
today by a crossfire involving pro-Iraqi civilians, Israeli
commandos, and the PLO.

On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average posted its third highest gain in
postwar history yesterday, moving 15 points higher to close at 3481.77.
Analysts attributed the hike to widening confidence that trade talks between
Chicago and New England will reconvene next week.

Presidenté Artur Trabucco of California Sur is reported to be in stable condition
and resting comfortably at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. The
66-year-old leader suffered a heart attack Tuesday while playing golf. Appearing
on CNN, Major General Clemente Trabucco, the ailing leader's eldest son,
emphasized that no change in government was being discussed and that the
Presidenté was expected to make a full recovery.

You're watching City News.

As part of our continuing coverage of the Kellogg-DiMarco wedding, we go live
to City News society correspondent Tina-Marie Elspeth, standing by at the
Nosara Hilton. Tina? -- what's the latest on these two, very high profile,
lovebirds? Is it a match made in heaven?

No, Tim, I don't think so. At least, some of my confidential sources are saying
that it's strictly a business deal between two of the City's most powerful families,
led by Chief Justice Leo DiMarco and billionaire recluse Howard Kellogg, the
groom's father, who hasn't been seen in public for almost twenty years. And
there's certainly no love lost between them. In '44, you'll recall, the Supreme
Court handed down a decision that forced Howard Kellogg to resign as chief
executive of Laissez Faire City, because he refused to testify or even appear in
Municipal Court to answer charges of corruption and malfeasance.

And that led to speculation that his son, Harmon, might have…?

Succeeded him -- although the City Clerk, Fred Fujimori, continues to insist that
the office of Chief Executive was abolished in 2045 by the Board of
Supervisors. I spoke to Fred by phone a few minutes ago and he said something
really funny. Quote: "Justice is the defense of the innocent liberty. That includes
the right to marry a sex machine."

Hahahaha. Who was he referring to, Tina? -- Dr. Kellogg, or police Lt.
DiMarco?

I have no idea, Tim. They're both very attractive people, physically. But Harmon
Kellogg seems to be one of those guys who can't hit his backside with both
hands, if you know what I mean, and he has no reputation at all as a ladies man.
His official bio reads like a comic book -- attended boarding schools I've never
heard of in Europe and Canada, has a medical degree of sorts from Paraguay,
and never held a job in his life, as far as anybody knows. According to Atlantis
Memorial, he has visiting privileges but no patients at this time, none that anyone
can remember all last year, and they weren't even certain what specialty he
practices -- so, I'd say the only thing we know for sure about Dr. Harmon
Kellogg is his golf handicap. Hahahaha. It's a twenty-six. Hahahaha.

Hahahaha. What about the bride?

Well. Janet DiMarco is a complete mystery -- except that her father is Chief
Justice Leo DiMarco, who many people say, however much they respect the
man personally, ought to resign. The court just isn't taking the 'New Bot Order'
at all seriously, even though practically every business, including City News
Corp, is 100 percent automated. When I interviewed to be a reporter last year, I
had to audition for the virtual news director -- basically a box with a face. That's
how business is done.

Quite right, Tina. The 'bot' says we should keep talking. Hahahaha.

Okay! Where was I? -- oh! Janet DiMarco. Well, first of all, no one that I
know knows this woman, or anything about her job with the police. And I don't
know if that's good or bad. She testified in a few murder cases earlier in her
career, but recently, according to my sources, either she was moved to some
kind of administrative post, or, more likely, she took early retirement. It's
basically impossible to get anyone at Police Headquarters to say anything about
personnel, including DiMarco -- so --?

Well, they are a private company…

Yes, that's true.

…and we have the highest respect for the City Police. Those gals do a great job.

They certainly do, Tim. I agree completely. Those of us who live in Atlantis or
Garza have a lot to be thankful for. That's why everyone on the guest list for the
reception is utterly baffled why it's being held here at the Nosara Hilton. The
street is an absolute mess. There's no parking. And, my personal opinion,
frankly, it's not a very suitable reception facility, if you know what I mean. I
have nothing against multicultural -- uh -- employment policies. But, really, the
Hilton is not what anyone would call a first class hotel. It's surrounded by very
ordinary middle class shops and low income apartments near the airport. Very
noisy, to say the least. And very mixed.

Well? -- maybe it's some kind of, uh, social statement, that they're having the
reception in Nosara?

I suppose. Maybe because it's close to the airport.

Who's on the guest list?

Oh! You name it! -- everybody who's anybody. We've got the Duke and
Duchess of Argyll, half a dozen princes from the Middle East and Southeast
Asia, executives of every bank and brokerage in the City -- a real who's who.
Apparently, the Kelloggs still have a lot of clout, socially. Most of the invitees
only had three or four days to get here.

Yes! We were all taken by surprise by the sudden announcement of this event.
Tina, I'm sorry, but we're going live to Beverly Bond, our News-ABC-King
Senior Correspondent, aboard Chopper Charlie... Beverly?

Hi, Tim! It's a great day for a storybook wedding! And what a spectacular place
to tie the knot. Right behind me, if you look right between those two hills, to the
left of the City Police helicopter, the wedding party has assembled on easily the
most beautiful little spot on God's green earth! Let's look at our Gyro-Cam
close-up… There they are! That's Harmon Kellogg in black formal and his bride
in a beautiful white Dior wedding dress, just as lovely as any girl could hope to
be on this special, special day. Quite a few of our military men in uniform. That's
Admiral George S. Kroft, the larger man in blue, with Col. Emmett Seldon of the
Reserves. I think that may be -- yes -- that's Chief Justice Leo DiMarco. It's
hard to recognize him in a plain gray suit, hahahaha. Apparently, he's going to
officiate. We were promised a live feed of the ceremony. I don't know if --

"…to each other. When you came into this world your destiny was already
carved for you in the heavens and on your soul. For many years you have
journeyed, often in the dark and have found little comfort. Human creatures have
let you down and your faith in mankind has waned. But yet you kept going, even
when you wanted to surrender to the uselessness you felt. Your souls have
longed for the expression of your God who many times left you alone to find
your own way, but still you placed one willing foot in front of the other and your
life went on. Many times you wondered what it all meant and your purpose was
lost to you. You dreamt of high and lofty peaks that reached up to the heavens
and your spirit cried for the way to God, and still you struggled with all things
human. Son and Daughter of the world, by your patience and fortitude you have
earned your place by each other's side and together you have found your way.
Your love of your own life was the thread you followed 'til you saw the light in
each other that called for you to follow it. This is the light of life that has shone
for all time and will shine in your hearts as you continue forward in the holy
search for the expression of your soul. Make that your only purpose and the
gods will respond to all your dreams. Some things are true and some are
profound, but only three words are holy -- 'I will it.' The love which bonds two
children cannot be had for any price less than this holy dedication, to will the best
in life regardless of consequences. Each of you is a sovereign, independent
being. Your freedom does not end here, it must begin again. Your love must be
born again each day or die for want of truth -- and in this, there is no one to help
you, or to fake the results, or to forgive you your sins, if you cannot do these
things yourself. No man or woman on this earth is perfect, nor is it perfection that
men and women seek from each other -- only the will to live. Take each other as
you truly are: the noble, frail, and imperfect children whose love is born of
struggle and daring. You dare to hold your heads up high; the struggle begins
again tomorrow, and for all your tomorrow's together in marriage. You will not
find it hard to help and nourish each other -- the difficulty lies in helplessness,
when no other person can do it for you. That is the moment of truth in marriage,
as it is in each person's life, when the issue is to stand before God as a complete,
but imperfect, animal -- and through weakness, find strength. You have had these
times together, and we pray that the future will be gentle with you -- as you are
gentle with each other. Go in peace together and mind the essential business of
living. To eat and drink and find happiness in your courage. It wasn't easy
coming to this place. Perhaps it will be easier to go away with the knowledge
that you are loved for your self and nothing more or less. May goodness bless all
of your days. I now pronounce you man and wife."

Oh, my God! -- what a beautiful, beautiful sentiment, wasn't it, Tim?

Yes, Beverly -- I, I just don't know what to say…

Absolutely beautiful!

The perfect words for a perfect couple.

It's just wonderful, Tim. I have a tear in my eye, for goodness sakes! -- Well!
-- Mr. and Mrs. Kellogg, the happy couple, are going directly to their
helicopter, apparently, to make the ten or twelve minute hop to the Nosara
Hilton. As soon as they are on board, Chopper Charlie is going to have to move
out of the airspace, but we'll keep feeding you live coverage of this gorgeous
day on the hills of the Pacific Coast, where Janet DiMarco became Mrs.
Harmon Kellogg -- a fairytale princess with a happy ending, the kind that every
girl dreams about. What a glorious, beautiful way to get married, Tim!

I might do it myself, someday.

On a mountain top?

Sure! Why not? You don't have to be rich to be creative.

Tim Elliot, I believe you're a romantic! -- you old trooper!

Hahahaha. Okay, Bev, okay… I confess. I thought that was a real nice wedding,
I have to admit. Very creative. I hope more folks think about the non-traditional
approach.

Absolutely, Tim, absolutely. I agree 100 percent.

Although a church service is fine, too.

Of course it is, Tim. Without our faith and good cheer, we'd be in a terrible fix…
And there they go, the newlyweds on board a Special Force helicopter that's
been decorated with streamers and hahahaha a pair of old shoes dangling from
the craft, as they make their way to a glamorous high society reception at the
Nosara Hilton, with the City Police escort flying in formation -- a salute to the
two First Families of Laissez Faire City and a new generation to carry on their
tradition of public service. We weren't supposed to say anything until the
ceremony was over, out of respect for Harmon and Janet's wedding vows -- a
really very touching ceremony that you heard live just a few minutes ago -- but
the Kellogg Family Trust has chosen to celebrate the happiness of this wonderful
day by donating five million rands to Atlantis Memorial, to build a brand new
cancer wing!

Wow! What a wedding gift!

It certainly is, Tim. The Kelloggs and the DiMarcos have always led by example.
During the war, they made huge donations that were never publicized. And
today, with the marriage of Dr. Harmon Kellogg to former police lieutenant Janet
DiMarco, that special tradition of public service and moral leadership still walks
hand in hand with love and compassion for the benefit of everyone in our
community.

You're watching City News. We'll be right back, after these important
messages.

Hi. I'm Clarence Whipple, Chief Cashier of Muni-Corp. For the third year, I'm
serving as honorary chairman of the War Relief Fund. Each year at this time, a
lot of us volunteer our time to remind folks that your pledge of just ten rands a
day does a world of good, feeding the hungry in India and China, providing
rehabilitation medical care, and bringing hope to hundreds of millions who lost
everything and have no way forward, except with our help and generosity. Last
year, we raised over seventy-five million rands. I know you'll want to help us top
that in 2050, when a War Relief volunteer calls on you at home or at work. Ten
rands a day is so little -- and they need it so much. Please pledge today. If you
want to volunteer, visit our website, triple dubya war relief dot org, and
download a free community planning kit. It's important work that only you can
do, because you can't always rely on somebody else to do it for you. Thank
you.

Washington apples! Big red Washington Delicious apples, only 79 cents a pound
at Jensen's! Or how about snappy fresh Granny Smith's? Just 79 cents a pound
at Jensen's. That's right. We took a HUGE delivery of fresh Washington apples,
and YOU get the savings! Check our site for big values everyday, open 24
hours, with seven locations to serve you in Garza, Esperanza, Nosara Exit Two
opposite Denny's and downtown at 4th and Center, in Ostional, Samara, and
our new superstore in Santa Marta. Jensens! -- the first name in value, where
YOU AND YOURS come first!

This is City News. The Dow Jones Industrial Average posted its third highest
gain in postwar history yesterday, moving 15 points higher to close at 3481.77.
Analysts attributed the hike to widening confidence that trade talks between
Chicago and New England will reconvene next week.

Presidenté Artur Trabucco of California Sur is reported to be in stable condition
and resting comfortably at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. The
66-year-old leader suffered a heart attack Tuesday while playing golf.

Actor-director Jamie Anderson is dead in Paris at the age of 70. The screen idol
who starred in the Harry Faraday thrillers and went on to direct some of the
world's best loved comedies -- "A Maiden In Paradise", "Tenderly Dear", and
"Liquid Bone" -- was awarded seven Oscars during his career, including two for
Best Director.

Now, with breaking news at Nosara International, we go live to
News-ABC-King senior correspondent Beverly Bond, on board Chopper
Charlie. What happened, Beverly?

At this moment, the situation is very confused, Tim. City Police are on the scene,
as well as members of the elite City Special Force, and we've just been ordered
to fly out of the controlled airspace of Nosara International. It could be that
they'll have to close the airport, at least for a while, because so many vehicles
are on the runways. A Delta flight had to make an aborted touch-and-go landing
a few minutes ago, and Chopper Charlie says they were diverted to Liberia.

What exactly happened?

Well, I don't really know. The impression I have is that there was a brawl of
some kind. Wait a minute. We've got the video cued up, from the Gyro-Cam.
This is right when the City Special helicopter, carrying Dr. and Mrs. Kellogg,
landed near Terminal Two, and you can see the City Police Jet Ranger coming in
right next to them, and then -- watch this! -- a woman in a lime green formal
gown -- right there! She runs over to the wedding party and -- watch this! --
attacks Janet DiMarco, ripping off her wedding veil and apparently a black wig
that she was wearing for the occasion, and then you see how quickly it became a
free-for-all. The men in blue are airport personnel, those are City Police officers
in white -- and a few seconds later, Special Force troops arrived.

Were gunshots fired?

I don't know, Tim. That was reported by an AP photographer, but I can't
confirm it independently. We didn't always have a good angle of vision at the
scene and then we were ordered to…

This is the Emergency Broadcasting Network. Civil defense authorities in your
area have declared that a state of emergency exists. For official information and
instructions, please tune immediately to Cable Channel Two, or 630 AM, 105.5
FM.

This is the Emergency Broadcasting Network. Civil defense authorities in your
area have declared that a state of emergency exists. For official information and
instructions, please tune immediately to Cable Channel Two, or 630 AM, 105.5
FM.

This is . . .


Chapter 13: Alpha Rat

Archie yawned and squinted his eyes shut, hard, and quickly reopened them. It
was a bad idea to fall asleep on final approach. He thrashed his head and
shoulders abruptly, forcing himself to wake up again, without losing track
of the horizon or the runway -- fifty feet, twenty feet, touchdown and throttle
back. Spoilers. Brakes. Another long-winded, blinding yawn as the old runway
flew beneath, periodically rattling the delicate instrument cluster and airframe like
a series of jolting collisions.

The Falcon slowed to a crawl and taxied past a battle-scarred tower and
terminal in the high desert. Skinny's clunky old Mirage popped a chute and
barreled alongside, using every inch of stopping space at the besieged rebel
airbase. If there was a ceasefire in Southern California, somebody forgot to tell
these guys. A battery of field mortars hammered slowly and relentlessly -- a
concussive clockwork that sounded like a parade at the main gate, where the
long-range mortar emplacements had been fortified with sandbags: thud…
thud… thud. Occasionally, Trabucco's badly-aimed shells whizzed overhead in
reply, tearing up the desert, falling mainly on empty streets, rearranging the
crumbling curb and gutter that developers poured a century ago for home
builders who never came. Palmdale was a ghost town of neatly paved streets
and avenues, no houses, a few checkpoints and many tents, the property of
Skinny's "Free California" air brigade. Archie made a mental note to send more
money. War is hell, alright, but it's impossible on a shoestring. I don't care what
Skinny says. He needs more of everything. Especially close air support. The
Mirage was useless against ground targets. A couple of Warthogs could do
wonders -- kill that tank battalion at Six Flags in two or three sorties. Hmm. That
means negotiating with Kendall again. Make him an offer he can't refuse.

With the engines down and the auxiliary on standby, there was nothing else to
do, except to pry himself out of the chair. Archie's long legs were sore, his butt
hurt, and he was half asleep -- so the whole performance seemed like a war of
coordination. Tripping on a loose belt, he bumped his head on the cabin
partition. "Ouch! God damn it!" he yelped, prefatory to a kid-like grimace and
lots of unnecessary rubbing, trying to make the pain go away. "Sorry," he
mumbled. "I'm just tired. Good afternoon, dear."

She screamed with rage very quietly.

"Yes, I know you're mad," he acknowledged peaceably. "I'm sure some time in
the distant future, perhaps you'll forgive me. However, you cannot always be in
charge of everybody and everything -- can you? People have rights. To privacy
and liberty. I know that doesn't sound very important to you, because all you
think about is law and order. And that's fine. I respect it highly. I really do,
Janet. But that doesn't give you the right to interfere with the safe operation of
this aircraft -- or, for that matter, my conduct of foreign policy. Whether I've
resigned or not, people still expect me to lead, and I lead from the front. I'm
sorry you aren't able to understand or agree with that 100 percent of the time,
but that's what I do as Commander-In-Chief. It's not like being a cop. There
are profound differences of responsibility that you and I have as public people."

She bellowed in protest, like a wild animal.

"Okay," he said pacifically. "I'm not asking you to agree with me, Jan."

"Hey, Arch!" his cousin Skinny yelled. "You comin' out, or what?" Then Skinny
stuck his head through the door and growled at him. "Hey, Archie, for fuck's
sake, stop goofin' around. This ain't no playpen. We gotta roll this thing under
cover. Who's the babe?"

"My wife."

"Cool. Congratulations. You keep her tied up like that all the time?"

"Special circumstances. C'mon, you can help me get her off. And there's a pile
of luggage, too. We could use some help."

Skinny's potbellied giant's frame barely squeezed through the door. "Shit! Why
can't these fuckin' Frogs build anything sensible? You gonna leave her tied up
like that?"

"Uh-huh… Stop screaming, dear. You're giving Skinny rather the wrong idea
about our relationship. You'll just have to take it on faith, Leroy. She actually is
my wife, and she normally has the run of the house."

"Uh-huh," Skinny doubted, as he carefully poked a ham-sized bicep under
Janet's back. The two men carried her off the plane with a minimum of bumps
and bruises, and proceeded to lay her as gently as possible in the hard steel bed
of an old beat-up Sierra. They fussed with blankets and old smelly pillows to
keep her from becoming equally beat up during the two mile trek to
Headquarters. "You just gonna leave her nude like that?" Skinny worried, a little
uncertain about Archie's grip on reality.

Archie yawned and nodded emphatically. "I want to be as far away as possible
when you untie her. Being married to this woman is like dancing with a Russian
commando."

Skinny raised his eyebrows and followed Archie back to the jet to fetch their
luggage. "Cool," he marveled in appreciation. "I got a Russian squad holding
Ontario, more or less. She'll fit right in. Here, let me carry that, pipsqueak.
Gimme both of 'em." A shell burst close to airport. "We better scram," Skinny
grumped at the noise and the two men quickly loaded the truck, brusquely
wrapping a chain around three leather suitcases and a steel box to keep them
from bouncing around. "Get in and hang on, Arch."

"Won't be long, dear!" Archie attempted to smile at his buxom cargo, standing
on the running board an extra second for purposes of diplomacy, however
fruitless diplomacy often is. Skinny raced the engine and they sped away, forcing
the Commander-In-Chief to retreat inside the truck cab with his door shut --
except that it didn't close very well. Bullet holes had chewed up the lock and
shattered the safety glass.

Skinny got on the radio to shout orders, driving one-handed through a junkyard
of parts and wreckage. There was a good-sized hump at the gate. Ouch.

Well, there's nothing to be done about it. Maybe I'll be divorced in another half
hour. The world's shortest marriage. Janet, Janet, Janet… the irreplaceable one.
Had to fire you for every conceivable reason. Insubordination. Reckless
conduct. Using my real name on an open channel. You beautiful, beautiful idiot. I
love you with my whole heart. That's why you're staying put for a few hours,
maybe a day or two. God help Skinny, if he decides to let you loose.

"Why'd you get married?" Skinny yelled over the rattle and clatter, as they
motored slowly down a backstreet, stopping occasionally to dip through a bomb
crater.

"Court order," Archie grumped. "Basically my mother, yours, Granny Smith, and
Good Old Gretchen -- unanimous verdict that I needed an heir. That's how these
things start, Leroy, with the best of intentions. Give 'em an inch and they chew
off anything else that's dangling within reach. Makes you wonder what might
have happened if we had a male Supreme Court. Could've made a deal with
Trabucco half a dozen times."

Skinny frowned. "What kind of deal?"

"Aw, nevermind," Archie begged with a sour expression. "Forget I said anything.
It's probably treason, or sedition, anyway. Something else to get impeached for.
You know? -- sometimes I get extremely fed up being Mr. Nice Guy Boy
Scout."

Leroy spat a stream of tobacco juice expertly out his window, chawed
thoughtfully for a few seconds, then drawled: "So, you married this amazon,
hogtied her buck naked and brought her here to get her ass blowed up prob'ly,
as an act of selfless charity, for the good of the nation, huh?"

"Very funny. Remind me to compliment you on your weight-loss success."

The men at Skinny's headquarters opened the gate as they approached, and the
Sierra rumbled to a halt at the foot of a hillside barracks. The O.D. and an
orderly appeared, saluting the Commander-In-Chief, who returned the gesture
with dignity -- until he was thunked on the back of his head by a flying track
shoe. "Ow!"

Skinny came round to offer advice. "I think you got yerself a little problem, there,
Arch."

Lady Janet had somehow wiggled her feet loose and was standing upright and
hopping around in the pickup bed. The other shoe came flying at him, less well
aimed than the first one. Archie groaned in the manner of a circus clown who
recently ingested soap. His beloved paramour hopped onto the truck cab and
started jumping up and down to dent it, which was an immediate success.

"Hey! Hey! Hey!" Skinny protested. "Donny! -- get me a horse rope, god damn
it!"

"Be gentle with her," Archie advised. "She's a black belt City cop."

That got his cousin's attention. "Ooo," he winced. "Great. Donny! -- make that
two horse ropes, on the double! And a couple more men!… Hey, where're you
going?"

Archie started the little Fiat convertible that was parked nearby. "I'll be back in a
few hours. I gotta go kill somebody."

"Hey! Wait a minute, god damn it! You can't just run off and leave me to deal
with this!" Skinny complained.

"It's a security issue," Archie barked at him, half serious. "Mine! You have a
fifty-fifty chance of catching her before she takes a gun away from somebody.
Bye!"

Yelling "Archie!" didn't stop him. The little Fiat spun gravel in the air and slid
through the front gate with impressive dexterity and haste.

Hmph. Cousin Simon. God's Gift to Laissez Faire City. Oh, well…

"Now, lookee here, Miss… Ouch!… I ain't got nothing to do with this! We're
supposed to be fighting a goddamn war here, not babysitting some -- Ow! --
Hey! I'm tryin' to be reasonable about this. But if you're gonna play rough,
alright. Donny! -- gimme that rope, god damn it. You two, go 'round the other
side. And keep yer distance. She kicks like a ten-foot chinaman!"

In the battle of the sexes, few men feel sanguine about harming a nude woman,
however much she may resemble a ten-foot chinaman. The operation required
seventy-five minutes of kid glove combat and the participation of twelve tough
airmen, under Col. Leroy Legend's valiant leadership, culminating in the
successful transportation of his cousin's cargo to a makeshift jail cell. Minor
pychological injuries, resulting from a chivalrous, but premature removal of Lady
Janet's gag, were treated by a corpsman who prescribed bed rest and booze for
the survivors. The Commander-In-Chief was not listed among the casualties.

Instead, he was barreling down what was left of the Antelope Freeway. Snipers
did their worst and came up empty handed. Some targets are just too fast. A
mile later, he spun through the median, the oncoming lanes, a gravel shoulder, a
little gap in the roadblock, and bypassed another hailstorm of hot lead. There
was an exit and a back door that threaded lazily across the mountains. Three
hours and ten minutes later, Archie pulled to a stop on Mulholland Drive. It was
as far as he could go without sleep. It came seconds after he switched off the
ignition, and sunset swallowed the little Fiat in red and black shadows near
Laurel Canyon, sheltering a fugitive too tired to say prayers.

"Darme suyo dinero!"

Archie was never pleasant when he was roused by a gunman. And the damn fool
made it easy, by holding the gun to Archie's head. It didn't remain there long.
When it fired, Archie threw the weapon on the passenger seat. He started the
car and drove off, taking time to consider the cool night breeze and where it
might take him next. The familiar crunch of tires on asphalt was a song of
competence, a ballad of precision on every twisting corner, from Laurel to
Cahuenga and the Reservoir.

Apparently, his contact was a patient man. The anticipated Bentley was parked
at the gate house. Archie drove around and parked in front of it. The motor
stopped. He tossed his shoulders and stretched, ran his fingers through his hair,
and pulled the latch to get out. He wasn't expecting a woman. Emphatically not
expecting this woman.

DiMarco sauntered up, hands on her hips, wearing her black jumpsuit, City
shield and gun. Oh, shit…!

"Mr. Prisoner," she acknowledged.

Archie plopped his butt on the ground and pouted, chin supported by both of his
hands. "Hi, honey, I'm home," he mumbled helplessly.

She sat beside him, legs folded Indian style, idly scanning the overgrown mess
that used to be a nice city park in a forgotten century. "Hey, you win some, you
lose some," she counseled.

He was momentarily brightened. "No hard feelings?"

"I didn't say that. I said 'you win some, you lose some'."

Archie resumed his pout. At length, he sighed. He cocked his head and leaned
on one elbow to study her. She looked like a college coed at a campfire. Hmph.
Unable to dent the mystery which is women in general and DiMarco in
particular, the Commander-In-Chief slumped back into a two-handed pout of
defeat.

"So, what's the plan?" she inquired.

"Up to you."

"Why me?"

"Because I was going to do the easy thing and assassinate Uncle Art and that
asshole Clemente, which you aren't going to let me do…"

"Correct."

"…so, it's up to you."

"Mm-hm," she acknowledged, then nodded her head a few times in agreement.
Archie noticed a deep scratch on her jawline and guessed that she had some
bruises as well.

"Anything I should know about? -- at Skinny's place?"

She shook her head. "Nope. Nobody killed. A few minor injuries."

Archie sighed thoughtfully, his mouth wrinkled with worry. "Okay, how about
this? I'm your prisoner. You have a writ of extradition. I'll help you kidnap
Trabucco and we'll take him back in one piece, if it's humanly possible -- word
of honor."

She shook her head. "No good. Try: we're married, and that means something.
This is a partnership, Simon, for life. All of it, every day until you die, or until I
die, and I hope for your sake that you die first, because men don't do well
without their wives. That's why you keep insisting on trying to shelter me, to
keep me out of action. By the way, do you know what happened in Nosara?"

"No. What?"

"Emmett went berserk. How predictable was that?" she flared with an admirable
sense of restraint, keeping things on an even keel, unwilling to indulge extra
emotion at a critical moment. "Cubby's on the lam with half a dozen other cops,
and Special is patrolling the streets. I'm so mad at you, for keeping that asshole
anywhere in the chain of command, that I thought about shooting you when you
got here, to put you out of your misery. It was totally stupid, Archie. Emmett
Seldon is an anal-retentive basket case. Why on earth did you give him
command of the City?"

Archie frowned at her in reply. "Why did you marry him?" he growled back.

She shrugged. "I was young."

"No good," her husband observed. "He was wounded in action. Don't pretend.
Don't skirt the issue. I know what happened."

It sobered her dramatically, hit a spot that hurt. Archie's compassion soared as a
consequence, rallying to help her. She sensed it and shook her head, refusing to
be blessed and forgiven. What I've done is unforgiveable, she said wordlessly.

"That can't be right," he answered aloud, reading her mind. "No one has a right
to your happiness except you, Janet. You are the meaning and criterion of your
liberty. And our happiness. Do you need me to say it? That I love you more than
I understood was possible to love someone. I love you more than my work, my
honor, my life -- if it came to that, and in a sense, it always does. I'm willing to
face whatever happens to you. Okay, I admit it. I… I've been sandbagging you,
and tried to seduce you with money, and worked as hard as I could to keep you
barefoot and pregnant…"

"I think I am."

Archie halted mentally. He swallowed. "I see. Well… good. I don't mean
'good' -- I mean I love you, Janet. Thank you." He parked his chin calmly atop
two folded fists and began to cry quietly, in gratitude. She smiled warmly at him
and rocked a little on her haunches -- tender little stretches to sway her heavy
shoulders and bosom, back and forth in a gentle nod that felt like an ancient rite.
Life can be wonderful at times.


Chapter 14: Super Bitch

After six consecutive minutes of domestic bliss, newlyweds Dr. and Mrs.
Kellogg stood nose to nose, shouting orders at each other: "Like hell you will!"
"Like hell I won't!" "I forbid it!" "Try and stop me!"

Archie pranced around and pulled at his hair. "NO, NO, NO, NO!"

His wife slumped and raised a hand to rub her forehead. "Stop acting like a
child. You give me a headache when you do that."

"Good!" he declared. "I hope I completely incapacitate you!"

She frowned in reply. "I will explain this exactly one more time, Your Most
Exalted But Slightly Dense Fucking Highness. We can't let Emmett run loose,
while you and I party hearty. Don't interrupt me, Simon, or I'll sock you. You
were right, when you said that we had different responsibilities as public people.
I agree. Go ahead and conduct foreign policy any way you like. I'll just butt out.
My beat is the City, and I'm going back to help Cubby. Comprendez?"

"It's my plane!" Archie trumped.

DiMarco shook her head. "Stolen City property. You said so yourself. You'll
have to make alternate travel arrangements."

"Arrrgh!" he wailed, temporarily beaten -- then exclaimed triumphantly: "AH,
HA! -- You've never flown a Falcon before! You'd be a threat to public safety!"

She turned and walked in the direction of the Bentley. "Fine. You don't think I
can fly a private jet. You're welcome to ride along. Maybe I'll handcuff you
nude, upside down in the toilet, and if you survive the crash you think I'm
destined to have -- because I'm only a girl and what do girls know? -- our
gallant Commander-In-Chief will have the unique distinction of being rescued in
one of the most truthful possible tributes to a brief, but interesting marriage,
handcuffed to a toilet seat. Archie, get out of my way!"

Archie was blocking access to the luggage compartment of the Bentley. "But
why?" he cried in anguish, waving his long arms like a semaphore.

DiMarco sighed. "Because there's another man." She beeped the key, and the
trunk popped open to reveal an overweight Special operative, bound and
gagged on the floor of the compartment, illuminated by two bright white courtesy
lamps. "He's been there about two hours, waiting for you to show up," she
explained. "His name is Alphonse. And since he's one of yours -- you can untie
him." She tossed the key at her husband's chest, and Archie trapped it against
his navy blue sport coat. It had the feeling of goodbye.

"Is there nothing I can say…?" he offered.

She shook her head.

"Or do…?"

That made her think briefly. It was a split second of vulnerability. Archie tackled
her at the waist, pinning her arms together, and the newlyweds tumbled into a
bramble bush. "OW! OW! OW!" they yelped in unison. "Archie!" "OW! -- Let
go!" "AAAAR! -- you idiot!" "Don't push, I'm trying to help! -- Wait, wait!
We're stuck!" Somehow, the butt of her holstered gun had poked through his
belt, and it was not immediately obvious how to extricate themselves without
risking grievous bodily harm. Forcefully wrestling a leg between hers for
mechanical advantage, Archie set both of them on fire, and their mouths
slammed together in sudden, gaping urgency. She tore at his hard biceps, his
shoulders and back, desperate to keep him and cleave to him for all time. Then
the fingers and thumb of his powerful left hand clamped the back of her neck like
the tight, no-nonsense grip of a big cat, holding the weight of her head. His right
paw ripped her jumpsuit open in three brute swipes, baring her shoulders,
forcing her arms back, spilling her hard, heavy breasts into sudden, tingly cool
exposure -- her nipples tightening instantly into tall red cones that begged to be
tugged on and milked. He lifted her bodily to arch her spine, ravishing bare
shoulders, bare clavicle, bare breastbone, and the firm, weighty mass of one
breast -- then stripped off his belt with a single, ferocious pull and lashed it
around her waist, pinning her elbows back. It was always war, to lay this
woman. It had to be. But war on brambles was taking things a bit far. They were
covered in prickly stickers.

Archie rose and carried his wife to the pearl gray Bentley, stopping momentarily
to throw the weight of her feet at the open trunk lid. She understood and kicked
it shut and twisted in his arms to thrust her lips against his, mouth open and
hungry and willing. He got the back door open and laid her over a wide, firm
leather bench. His pocket knife split the crotch of her jumpsuit with a single slice
and a two-handed rip, and he mounted her, driving deeply and roughly into her.
Superbitch was nearly a virgin. She craved it, even though Archie stretched her,
making her body grip him as tightly as a warrior's handshake, made like a fist in
battle, as slippery and wet as fresh papaya. They coupled hard and hot, every
day, every night, stealing minutes and hours whenever they could -- sometimes
mere seconds to clutch at each other in animal passion, not always hidden from
others. It was not a secret. It was not an obsession. It was life. Final and
absolute. They were made for each other, needed or wanted nothing else
beyond the rightness of this man thrust into this woman and their total embrace,
the oneness of life.

When he exploded in climax, Janet gasped and wept like a maiden and freed
herself from the pretense of separateness and surrender. She looped her arms
around her husband's body in honor of life -- all of life, in both of them and
between them in utero. What final truth there is, in love. What goodness and
calm, to breathe as one, hot and close, because two made a blaze of grief and
courage.

"I love you," she cried. "I love you so much, Simon. Sometimes I can't stand it,
it's so big." Misunderstanding, he apologized. "No, not that," she hastened to
explain. "I mean loving you. I mean what we are to each other. That's what's
big." She kissed his face and ears and hair, and her arms held him tightly,
reaching over the length of his back, his shoulders, and hips, gathering him
closer. "Although, you're also big the other way," she added. "No -- don't go.
Stay inside me, forever, a little while longer."

He got up, leaning back on his haunches to size up the tactical situation. No
lights. No sound of another car. Maybe they could rest a minute -- and he
collapsed back into her arms, still breathless and becoming hard again, only
seconds from another mad urge for a replay. Yes…! she gasped, when he thrust
suddenly, stretching her wide and very deeply again, reaching her cervix. If
you're not pregnant yet -- you will be, woman -- her gallant knight vowed a
second time.

This led to snoring. Tearful, happy -- and squished under a snoring ox, she
thought. Terrific.

DiMarco extricated herself by sliding onto the floor of the car sideways in the
narrow canyon behind the front seats, and then wiggled onto the broken
pavement, hand over hand on sharp grit. Locusts and crickets sang loudly in the
chill night air, announcing that no one threatened anyone tonight. Not here. Not
now. From all fours, she rose to stand -- a tall, strong female, half-dressed in
shredded black denim that hung in strips and would never close again like a
jumpsuit. The things we do for love.

She walked around the car, considered her options, and opened the front
passenger door, grabbing the lightweight sport jacket that Archie abandoned in
the heat of battle. It fit well enough and closed at the front -- sort of. Off came
the ripped mess of her former jumpsuit. What a rat. If he keeps this up, I'll have
to buy a new wardrobe. Maybe I need a suit of armor, or chain mail, or
something like that. Or separate bedrooms. Hmph. A lot of good that would do.
Separate houses, with a minefield, maybe.

DiMarco hiked her gunbelt into position and sat its weight on one hip. Be
careful, Archie. I want you back in one piece. And that's quite enough of that.
It's time to go, before he wakes up and throws another tantrum. I'm a cop,
Arch. Get used to it.

She walked a hundred yards toward the reservoir and stepped through a gap in
the shrubs. Skinny's prize Flathead Harley coughed and chugged and finally
roared as she rolled back to the street and stomped it into first gear.

Driving a Hog is a physical experience of eternity, invincibility. DiMarco carved a
long white streak through the night, retracing a 78-mile circuit that cut enemy
lines twice and ended in Palmdale under bombardment. It was not the sort of
environment in which a police officer was obligated to shout Miranda rights.
DiMarco mentally counted the hollowpoints in her heavy sidearm, budgeting four
rounds for each roadblock. It was always a pain, shooting with her left hand.
She hauled the gunbelt over her lap, sliding it to draw from the wrong side. That
put the spare clip behind her back. It also twisted Archie's blazer, popping the
button. It flew open at the shoulders. Great. Just what I needed. DiMarco
squealed to a halt, tore the damn thing off, and proceeded again. Fuck it, I'll fight
naked. Better that way. Just colder. It'll keep me awake.

This proved to be an understatement. She was freezing from exposure, and
when she spotted a delivery truck on the shoulder, she slowed to check it out.
Yep -- a snoring driver in the cab. DiMarco clicked the bike into neutral, swung
off, and smacked the sheet metal door twice. The driver woke with a start. He
saw a beautiful, black-haired, disheveled, naked woman standing at the window,
approximately identical to the dream he was roused from. He lowered the glass
to say thank you, hello, and yes. DiMarco stepped up on the running board and
knocked him stone cold with a single blow aimed at the bridge of his nose.

Fortune often smiles on ruthlessness. The truck driver's California Sur militia
uniform fit like a glove. DiMarco was promptly transformed into a Trabucco
motorcycle courier with a gash of fresh blood down the front of a dull khaki
shirt. The unconscious driver also provided a hat to keep her hair in check. She
could ditch the enemy disguise when she got to Palmdale -- assuming that she got
to Palmdale. Skinny's hot, heavy cycle shot forward and DiMarco rumbled into
the night, sliding onto a gravel trail that led north through the hills.

The chief drawback of driving a Flathead Harley is that you can't hear a thing
and it throws light and noise a thousand yards ahead, like a suicidal love letter to
traffic cops. DiMarco therefore had no tactical advantage, except a keen sense
of distrust that any corner in the road might toss her suddenly into battle, fighting
for her life. This made it imperative to drive as fast and crazy as possible -- partly
to shrink the enemy's window of organized response when they heard or saw
her coming, and partly to keep herself on the edge of preparedness. You drive
crazy when it's time to kill or be killed. Last time she raced up this winding,
slippery road, two men died.

It was grim work, to draw and shoot to kill, in cold blood -- basically murder.
On the job, it was legally impossible to shoot someone, unless they fired first.
But this was different. L.A. was a declared war zone. Archie funded the
insurgents, in alliance with Bobby Kendall of Sierra Nevada and President
Larkin of the People's Republic. Skirmishes in the air and on the ground had
raged for two years. A tacit "no first use" of nuclear weapons was imposed by
the time-honored reason of necessity. Any decisive act of mass destruction
would trigger an automatic, devastating exchange between North and South and
Nevada. The three regional rivals possessed enough ex-U.S. ordnance to
incinerate everything west of Colorado. Unable to kill each other wholesale,
there was a steadily mounting butcher's bill of conventional combat, some of it
here in the San Fernando Valley, more in the desert near San Bernadino, quite a
lot on the Grapevine. Trabucco's forces were weary, bullied, ill-equipped and
desperate. It made them cruel. It was a bad idea to be taken prisoner. Especially
if they discovered who she was.

She suddenly remembered her City shield, lost in Archie's jacket pocket,
discarded on a nameless connector road that bypassed Los Feliz. For more than
a dozen years, DiMarco wore that badge. Her rank changed, but the badge
didn't. Number 27. In radio traffic, it was abbreviated as "Seven." She could
mentally hear Cubby saying it angrily in answer to Metro, or calling for back-up,
or reporting an arrest. Last year, "Mad Cow" Russell changed the nomenclature.
Everybody on the force had to use their surnames as well as badge numbers in
radio messages -- except DiMarco. She was still Seven. Or was she? You're not
a cop without a badge, and hers was rusting in a ditch, as remote as the rule of
law in L.A. Maybe I should retire. Live privately. Travel. Disappear.

DiMarco studied her hands, wrapped tightly on the twin grips of the steering bar.
Eight hard acrylic nails stabbed the fleshy meat of both palms. Archie liked to be
scratched, and she liked doing it, but long nails complicated the matter of
drawing and firing a gun. It also limited the kind of fist she could make, which
therefore dictated what happened to the truck driver. He was probably dead.
Her law enforcement career had gone totally off the rails -- insane -- just like
Cubby predicted it would. But it was life on life's terms. You fall in love and
bizarre shit happens. This is an excellent reason not to fall in love, especially if
one is legally forbidden to make abrupt, unpredictable, and catastrophic
changes. That's why no one gets a choice about love. When it happens, your
claim to honor is toast. You spend more time trying to get out of love -- scrub it
off like sticky mud -- rather than dive in and beg for chaos. She and Archie made
a chemical explosion on contact that produced a double lobotomy and two
perfectly competent, responsible adults ended up no brighter than teenagers in
the back seat of an old Chevy on a country lane. Her hair was still covered in
brambles. The evidence was conclusive. Love was organically and obviously
nutzo. There ought to be a law against it, an inoculation, or at least an antidote.
Like Erica Jong said: 'Men and women, women and men -- it'll never work.'

Moonlight frosted the scrub forest in shades and speckles of white dew. She
snapped off the headlight and, at the crest of a hill, she coasted to a stop. The
Harley chugged quietly like a tame monster. DiMarco switched off the ignition
and thought about the next slope, roughly a mile ahead, where a Bradley APC
blocked the on-ramps to 210. Last time, she barreled through that roadblock
like a hellcat -- just happened to get lucky and hit more targets than she missed.
It would be dangerous to try it twice. Trabucco's men were probably on full
alert, watching for a renegade Harley, and they could hear the throaty growl of
Skinny's Flathead half a mile away. No fun being a notorious fugitive. You end
up in jams like this, unable to strike unexpectedly with impunity.

She had a bottle of Jim Beam in the saddlebags. DiMarco reached back to pop
open the compartment and grab it by the neck. Time to warm up and get crazy.
She lifted her foot from the brake and pushed forward. The silent hog started to
roll downhill, quietly crunching gravel like an obedient servant. She wondered
where Cleve Barrymore was, what he did, when Seldon declared a state of
emergency. Maybe he's in contact with Cubby.… Aw -- who's kidding who?
Cubby Rice is going to rip me a new asshole when I find her, and she'll be
absolutely right, as usual, I fucked up. Lied to my partner. No way back after
that, unless it's a national emergency -- which Emmett conveniently provided. A
silver lining of sorts. An excuse, anyway. That, and being driven temporarily nuts
by the Chief Executive. Too bad Cubby doesn't have a sense of humor about
this shit.

DiMarco coasted to a lazy stop at the bottom of the hill and took another quick
belt of Jim Beam, tossing the bottle with defiance, half-full, into a ditch. It rolled
and gurgled, making a string of sounds that could have been spoken words,
because they were so clearly and distinctly in mind: Fuck the law. This is war.

Hot with resentment, she tore open the saddlebags and grabbed a pair of
fragmentation grenades for her belt, spare ammo clips shoved into two pockets,
and a thick sandwich shoved in her mouth. She wolfed two bites and threw it
away. It was nonsense to carry a first aid kit. She took the morphine squibs,
K-factor, and a rolled lint bandage. Deeply sobered by the risk of capture, she
pocketed a little glass jar with one white capsule.

Ready to kill or be killed, DiMarco marched in the direction of the freeway,
crunching gravel with a steady and steathly gait. She had no thoughts, no feelings
except one. Love and war are identical. It's mindless oneness with the animal
present -- the here and now -- so, pay attention and deal with it, whatever's next,
unpredictable and chaotic. Standby for the fog of battle, running like demon
acrobat to do the worst hell you can wreak, as fast as you can, before they stop
you. And try not to slip on the gravel.

I want to fuck Cleve Barrymore once before I die. I want to have Archie's child.
I want to tell my father to go to hell and let him see me cry. I want to find Cubby
and tell her that I love her. And I want to get the fuck out of here in one
piece. I want to live!

Trees crowded the interchange and made it hard to guess what was where,
although she had a clean, fresh memory of it. The Bradley should be over there,
on the right. Her gun dropped heavily at the end of her reach, cocked and
pointed at the gravel. Regulation assault. Recording start.

It was nervewracking, like a maze in a vacuum, deadly quiet and no data. No
guard patrol. No armored personnel carrier. No one under the viaduct or on the
other side of the freeway. What the fuck! All this for nothing! -- she fumed
furiously. Then there was a sudden crash of noise on gravel, too loud and close
to be anything other than the enemy. Measured in hundreths of a second, her
arm swung around and the long flat barrel of her gun drew down on a rapidly
closing target -- her finger squeezed tightly on a deadly decision -- and then her
wrist collapsed, flipping the gun barrel skyward. A boy on a bicycle wobbled
and skidded and fell in front of her, terrified that he had been marked for death.
The frantic child tumbled and sprang to escape, a confused, blistering sprint for
safety that ended miles away, abandoning the crashed bike. Its rear wheel
clicked in smooth, frictionless rotation at her feet, mocking the hardened killer
who almost shot an innocent kid civilian, probably a refugee. It doesn't get any
worse than that. She could still see the terror on his face -- a thin, tender face,
maybe eleven years old, dirty and malnourished. His possessions were strapped
to the handlebars -- a handful of junk wrapped in a scrap of frayed bedsheet.

She walked away, back to where she parked the Harley, a mile of slick gravel in
the dead of night. The moon slipped behind a cloud and her belly tipped with a
dragging pain that could only mean one thing.

Revulsion quaked from her feet to her belly and torso, shaking DiMarco like a
cyclone -- forcing her to collapse to her knees, then hands, then prone, to bellow
in pain and feel every ounce of war and grief in this world and the last, like an
eternal race memory of all women and children, all warriors and the crumbling
tissue of duty that separated private killers from professional cops. Janet was
losing Archie's fertilized ovum. In a few minutes it would be flushed from her
womb like a dead foreign object. All ye who live by the sword shall perish by
the sword, she cried helplessly.


Chapter 15: The Loyal Bourgeoisie

Col. Emmett Seldon logged on with a gruff nod and addressed the bank of
monitors like an unfeeling robot whose iron mouth could move no farther than an
imperceptible snarl. "This meeting will adjourn in twenty minutes," the robot
warned. "London first -- five minutes. Proceed, Mr. Black."

Seldon's main teleconference screen changed from a garish mirror-image of
himself, to that of Lord Julius Black, a corpulent, elderly speculator in London.
Black's reputation was synonymous with wealth and cruelty, administered by a
global hedge fund that never lost a bet. From time to time, Black Doughty
Lambert toppled governments.

Black's coarse, rich voice boomed with genuine authority. "Seldon, I don't
know much about you -- and I don't care. The point of this meeting is to talk
business. I'm willing to make an upfront payment of ten million rands, if we reach
agreement on arbitration. Have you read Pickle's briefing document?"

"It's been reviewed," Seldon replied. "I considered it."

Black snorted angrily. "If you did, there's no reason to waste time talking. So,
listen up and listen good. You keep those courts shut -- permanently -- and I'll
underwrite whatever budget you think you need for national security. Any
reasonable budget, that is, equal to Denmark or Sweden, for example. What you
do internally in Laissez Faire City is up to you -- provided that you play ball on
arbitration. I don't care if it's a defacto understanding or if you dress it up as
legislation. All I'm asking for is the same 'hands-off' regime that we have in
Luxembourg and London. No public prosecutor. No police. I don't have to
explain why. All you need to consider is the immediate cash flow benefits of
arbitration. The LESE 500 will probably double in value. If you're invested in the
right margin stocks at the right time -- and I'm sure your banking people know
how to time this, just as well as I do -- you will profit very handsomely. My
group will pay whatever expenses happen to pop up. If you want to cut costs,
by joining AMFORCE, I'll see to it that Mexico, Venezuela, and all the rest vote
to admit the City as a sovereign signatory. It doesn't get any fairer than that,
Seldon. You have a big job to do, with Legend gone and DiMarco dead. Don't
make it harder on yourself, hanging on to something that doesn't serve any
purpose. You need practical clout. You need to win over the global business
community. I'm offering it to you on a silver platter."

Lord Black paused, expecting a thank you. None was forthcoming. "Did you
hear me, Seldon?" he asked rather abruptly.

"Loud and clear."

"Well, then…? Black demanded.

Col. Seldon nodded. "Carry on, Mr. Black. You have four minutes remaining."

In his City of London office tower, at the summit of a financial empire, and in the
Park Lane Hotel where he kept a penthouse for amusement, Lord Black reigned
supreme. His every whim was indulged by quietly competent lieutenants and an
obedient harem of teenage boys. Black was not accustomed to bargaining. He
issued orders and ultimatums, and everyone jumped. That was Julius Black's
way of doing business. Now he bellowed down the webconference backbone,
loudly enough to overload the microphone. It came to Seldon as a series of
distorted knocks and bleats. "Who the fuck do you think you are, you little
tin punk? Either you go along with this, or I'll short LESE down the fucking
drain! It's off 20 points in the last half-hour. You haven't got a chance, Seldon,
unless you do what's right. LFC is a dinosaur stuck in the tar pits! Look around
you. New York -- Tokyo -- Frankfurt -- Paris. Not a goddamn court or cop in
any business capital except Nosara. I know you had a personal relationship with
young Legend, and there's loyalty involved. But face facts! Two-thirds of the
world can't do business in Nosara, because of those stupid constitutional
courts! Surely you know it -- or somebody who's advising you knows it -- that
Laissez Faire City was a bubble economy, a safe haven in the 20's and 30's.
Hell, I even had a position in LESE. But nothing in business is static, man. We
have to adapt to changing circumstances and expectations. Why do you think
Textron finally gave up and moved its headquarters staff, from Nosara to
Mexico City? The rule of law isn't practical, Seldon. Arbitration is the name of
the game. I've made what I consider to be a very generous offer. You don't
have to give anything up. Keep your air force, your security people, some kind
of border patrol -- whatever you think you need down there, locally, to keep an
eye on the lame and the halt. That's fine. But keep those constitutional courts
shut and let businessmen decide amongst ourselves how we do business. You
had every right to declare an emergency. No problem whatsoever, if you want a
military system. But there has to be a division of labour. Do what you like to the
riffraff. Leave finance to people like me. I'll take care of you -- you know I can
and will -- very generously. But I'm not going to answer to any court of law,
except the arbitrators that I choose to do business with, on whatever terms I
agree privately. We have a lot in common, Seldon. You're in power. You don't
want the courts challenging every goddamn order you give, do you? So, wise up
and do what makes sense. Either agree to this deal, or there'll be a run on your
currency and LFC will go right down the tubes, just like Vancouver -- a stagnant
backwater that can't even float a zero-coupon on its own exchange. Make up
your mind. I can be a very helpful friend to have. I suggest you act accordingly."

Another pause without comment.

Black bellowed in angry frustration. "If I knew I was going to be talking to a
brick wall, instead of a human being, I would never have agreed to negotiate!" he
blared, slamming the sound processors again.

"You're being heard, Mr. Black -- and you have two minutes remaining."

"Alright, Colonel Smart Ass," the banker retorted. "Get this. If you reopen those
courts, I'll see to it that Laissez Faire City has a change of heart. Two hours,
Seldon! I expect an answer by midnight GMT and it'd better be the right one!" --
and Julius Black's florid, fleshy face suddenly disappeared. By default logic, the
screen switched back to a view of the War Room, narrowly focused on an
expressionless robot in uniform. Seldon glanced down at his neatly printed
agenda.

"Since London is no longer with us, you're next, Raleigh. Four minutes."

"Uh… am I on?"

"Go ahead, Professor."

"Uh… alright. Just a minute. I'm not quite ready."

In Raleigh, North Carolina, a thin old man in an ill-fitting flannel suit shuffled
papers and folders in haste. He cleared his throat, adjusted the material on his
desk, and began to lecture. "In postwar history, beginning with the British
Arbitration (Reorganisation of the Common Law Courts) Act of 2037, followed
by the Kent-Swasey Bill in Boston and similar measures, some of which were
instituted or practiced as a matter of custom, rather than as an explicitly legalistic
or sovereign act of legislation that claimed to be in the character of a
constitutional principle, the closure of public law courts, specifically those which
were empowered to summon witnesses, empanel juries, compel discovery of
evidence, and ultimately enforce court orders against private citizens, was linked
to the success of private law, conducted voluntarily by parties who, for business
reasons or moral objection to public justice, sought arbitration as a means of
resolving the few -- and I should emphasize, very few -- commercial disputes that
arose from time to time in modern, for lack of a better word, 'libertarian'
societies…" he droned.

He droned a very long time. Four minutes of Prof. Eugene Pickle seemed an
eternity. And his theories were well known. It was a human right to be free of the
law, he had argued in twenty-two books, during three decades of tenure at state
universities. Privately funded law enforcement agencies, like LFC's 'City Police
Inc,' were a threat to economic growth and equal rights, he warned. Therefore,
law enforcement should be made illegal. According to Pickle, no private
individual had a right to arrest or restrain another person: "Keeping the peace is
the job of democratic governments, who violate the abstract liberty of their
citizens in order to secure property rights -- an unfortunate but inevitable tension.
We can't expect utopian justice. All we can do is learn from history and abolish
the rule of law, incrementally, to produce more liberty. Business owners,
throughout the 20th century and certainly today, decried common law criminal
justice as a loaded crapshoot, equally disposed to acquit or punish someone,
depending on whether or not his innocence is believed or disbelieved by ordinary
jurors -- i.e., by people who are unqualified to sit in judgment of a highly skilled
business executive. On the other hand, an independent civilian police force,
accountable to no one but lawyers and judges, is a dangerously unrepresentative,
incestuous and arbitrary social experiment with potentially grave future
consequences…"

Seldon found himself daydreaming of Janet. It came over him like a drug, slowly
dimming his awareness of everything else. His head dipped. He swayed in his
chair and had to physically shake off the nightmare of his ex-wife's physical
form. I want to be free of this, he begged. I don't want to know who was right
or wrong. Let the stupid bitch die. We all have to die someday. That's just how
it is. I didn't want this job. I didn't seek it or ask for it. It's mine because there's
nobody else to do it. There is no right or wrong -- not for individual people, not
for public servants. Only duty and discipline, given arbitrarily and determined
mostly by competition -- the invisible hand of a chaotic, meaningless world.

"…for the benefit of all mankind," Prof. Pickle concluded energetically. "And if
my humble exertions on this important question may have played a part, however
small, in the larger unfolding of the Creator's grand design that I believe is
libertarian at its core, I shall consider myself fortunate indeed to have helped to
gird future generations of freemen with the eternal wisdom of Bastiat, Hayek,
Friedman the Younger, and that greatest of all political philosophers, John Parry
Barlow, whose seminal Declaration is a beacon that shines like the moon, for all
to see in the dark, uncertain shroud of human events. Uh… do you have any
questions?"

Col. Seldon punched a button. "No," he answered. "Go ahead, Seattle."

The City Administrator appeared on screen, speaking from the Hexagonal Dome
of the People's Republic of the Pacific, where he led a diplomatic team that was
negotiating a new trade agreement. After two weeks of talks, they were still
bickering about payment systems. The People's Republic wanted LFC to peg
against sterling -- a fiat currency that was slipping dramatically against the rand on
a daily basis.

"With all due respect, Colonel," the Administrator moaned, "I think you should
let me handle commercial diplomatic affairs -- like Harmon did. That was a
stunningly horrible way to treat Lord Black, for heaven's sake! You've made an
enemy, for no reason."

"Maybe so," Seldon nodded. "Maybe he always was."

The City Administrator frowned and then nodded. "Probably. I can't say. I
know that Harmon repeatedly refused to do business with Black Doughty -- but I
thought it was just a personality clash. If you have other reasons…"

"I do."

"…well, I'll try to smooth some ruffled feathers when I get back. Now, about
the law courts. I personally don't care one way or the other. We've done well
enough with the current system, obviously. But it imposes costs, you realize. And
I don't mean lost opportunities. I'm talking about our ability to govern effectively
-- especially now, in light of recent events."

"Go ahead, Paul. What do you recommend?"

"Are any of the Justices present, or monitoring this discussion?"

"No."

"Not even Lady Barbara?"

"No."

The Administrator frowned, choosing his words carefully. You never know
who's listening, or who might leak information. "The Eagles Nest will have to
agree with your final decision. It's their responsibility to run an orderly, stable
exchange."

"I'm aware of that," Col. Seldon snapped. "They're next on the agenda. What I
need to know from you is whether the People's Republic is for or against moving
to a 'Law Merchant' policy of some kind? Have you had enough time to discuss
this with your opposite number?"

The Administrator nodded. "Yes. Javier said that the Republic would prefer we
suspended our system of justice, or restricted it severely. No other state claims
the right to a global jurisdiction -- not that LFC is a state -- but in a defacto sense,
that's how they perceive the Supreme Court Foundation and City Police Inc.
Seattle and its trade partners have no complaint about internal security forces,
like their own, confined to our geographic territory in Costa Rica and Cuba. But
you can imagine how upset everyone gets, when a City cop makes an arrest in
Santiago or Boston. They've tolerated it, because LFC is the only place left on
earth that has adversarial justice and due process of law. The Nosara bar
adjudicated five thousand cases in equity and torts last year -- almost all of them
overseas disputes, because the fairness of Laissez Faire City courts is respected
worldwide. But it also poses a lot of technical barriers to closer political and
economic ties, especially with the European states. I doubt very much that, with
Chief Justice DiMarco sadly out of the picture, world opinion is set in stone.
They're watching and waiting to see what happens next. I think it depends on
who the Justices elect to succeed Leo DiMarco."

"What if they appoint one of their own? Or somebody like Cleve Barrymore?"

The Administrator shrugged. "Well, it wouldn't surprise me."

"What do you advise, Paul?"

"Two things. First, you should proceed with a lot of consensus. Other than the
lawyers and judges, I mean. Ask Doug Wilson of the Merchants Association.
He's a very shrewd player, and he has his finger on the pulse of local opinion.
Last time I spoke with Doug, he was furious about losing a case in Municipal
Court -- something silly like the right to limit speech on his own sidewalk, which I
can understand perfectly well had upset him. Those pickets and protestors
outside the Marriott are a disgrace in Garza. Bad enough that the courts
wouldn't let anyone tear down the Tico storefronts near the airport. I think if you
ask enough people, you'll get the same advice I might offer. Secondly, I
recommend that this should be put on the back burner as long as possible. I'm
told you allowed a limited resumption of broadcasting. That's good. People like
television. Make an announcement that the state of emergency is over, and that
in a few weeks or months -- pick a date you can live with -- you'll make a final
decision about how to reform the legal system. Everything's quiet on the streets,
right?"

"Very quiet," Seldon acknowledged.

"So? -- let it slide. If you don't discuss it, no one else will. Take your time."

The Dictator nodded gravely. "Thank you, Paul," he said with sincerity -- then
glanced at his agenda again. "Eagles Nest, are you ready to join us?…
Apparently not. Okay, Warsaw, you have three minutes to give your report,
starting now."

The ticking window of time was filled with testimony from around the world,
except Eagles Nest, which had some sort of software conflict. Every participant
condemned the rule of law in principle. Col. Seldon needed no hectoring about
the evils of law enforcement. Special Force and the Chief Executive were above
civilian law, he believed, if not in theory, at least in practical terms. Having
successfully performed a meaningless political ritual of twenty minutes duration in
cyberspace, Col. Seldon thanked the attendees and speakers, and terminated
the global roundtable with a bored click. He turned his swivel chair to the left,
ready for another, more important chat.

Throughout the preceding twenty minutes, General Edwardo De La Rosa of
Panama sat quietly and comfortably out of the camera's view in the War Room
-- and delicately dissected and savored the tableaux of voices and faces in
London, Seattle, Warsaw, and elsewhere. When the conference ended and
Seldon turned to question him, De La Rosa creased his blubbery face into a
smile of satisfaction and twiddled his fingers, like a happy, satisfied epicure at a
Belgian two-star table. One could almost see the napkin under his chin, to catch
unintended slop during a mannered, but lusciously sensuous feast.

"Very, very good, mi amigo!" De La Rosa grinned.

"Excuse me, Colonel," the duty officer interrupted to report. "The City One
Falcon entered our airspace, sixty miles offshore, about the same latitude as
Managua, just under Mach One, practically skimming the ocean, about 200 feet
in altitude. I don't know if I can scramble an intercept fast enough. ETA Nosara
in less than twelve minutes -- that is, if they're landing in Nosara. They refuse to
answer us by radio. There was an encrypted packet on Channel 307, about two
minutes ago. It triangulated in the exclusion zone. At first, we thought we had a
cruise missile launch -- but then it returned City One's radar ID. I don't know
who the pilot is, or how many passengers are on board. Nothing from Col.
Legend in Palmdale. Those circuits are still down. Could be that Palmdale was
overrun or sustained a direct hit. Sir!"


Chapter 16: The Sea Gives Up Her Dead

"Nosara Tower, City One. I am declaring an emergency. Request fly-by-wire
landing. Altitude 2200, airspeed 101 -- about two clicks above stall. Slaving to
DLS -- now! Good luck, Nosara. If I were you, I'd get the hell out of there. City
One out."

Every second mattered. DiMarco fired the flares, scrambled out of the cockpit,
climbed into her gear, took a big breath, and launched herself forward and
down, plunging into the blistering airstream, twisting like a shark on attack.
Rehearsed mentally a thousand times, the actual business of doing it was easier
than she hoped. Life is like that. We fret and calculate and worry -- only to
discover that most of our fears were unfounded. She had successfully jumped
from a Falcon 50, pivoting herself under its belly to escape the wing's leading
edge, and DiMarco tumbled in freefall, waiting too long to open her chute. This
is the awful price of modern war. The only way to escape detection is to do
something crazy. A second later could have been fatal. A second earlier? --
perhaps her white nylon parachute would have been noticed from shore. Six
hundred feet above the surface and seven miles from the beach, daring life to
take her home, DiMarco's chute galloped into a stringy mess that flapped and
billowed late and collapsed in the Pacific Ocean, like an anchor of wrecked sails.
A life jacket, donned in anticipation of this eventuality, kept her afloat with her
head more or less above water, and the ocean at sunset was calm enough to live
and let live. But not for very long.

"No!… No!… You fucking idiot!…" Sgt. Cubby Rice bellowed at the sky,
standing in the prow of a Police inflatable that was leaping from wave crest to
crest, its Mercury outboard wailing at full din, pinned there by a steady hand at
the throttle. There was no point yelling at Dinky to go faster. There wasn't any
faster. They had been pre-positioned on the water as closely as possible. There
was nothing for Cubby to do -- except to curse and pray and suffer -- until they
got there. Her arms gestured emphatically, every so often, directing the boat's
course over 16 knots of wobbly jolts, like driving a rubber bobsled.

Waving to slow down, Cubby suddenly leaped from the port bow, and Dinky
zoomed past the scene. The craft turned a tight circle and roared around the
tangled nylon swamp. In icy water, Cubby Rice swam furiously to her partner
and grabbed DiMarco with a powerful slap of defiance, refusing to let her bob
face down through the next wave. The boat came near enough to grapple, and
Dinky leapt from the sternsheets to haul them aboard, Janet first… heavy as hell,
tangled in belts and cords, unconscious. The only way to do it was to get Cubby
out of the water, to help pull DiMarco to safety. Cubby screamed for a knife to
cut away the chute, and Dinky screamed back "Get up here!" because time was
vanishing -- seconds mattered. "I've got her! Hurry up!"

The two women fought to lift and free her from the ocean, then laid DiMarco in
the well of the boat. "Who the hell jumps out of a jet, naked?" Cubby cried
hoarsely at the unconscious one, while Dinky tore open her lifejacket, listened
to her heart, and then heaved with all her might to throw DiMarco's body over
the side of the rubber boat, dunking her head back in the ocean. Cubby
shrieked in protest, got ignored. When she grabbed Susan Drake's arm, the
skinny pilot yanked away and barked at her to shut up. Dinky hauled and
shoved DiMarco like a side of beef until her chest was in the right position -- and
then straddled and pressed down on the victim's back with a forceful rhythm that
looked like punishment. Cubby leaned over the side and saw DiMarco spew
saltwater… then cough and suck air. She was breathing again.

Cubby rose to help Dinky lift DiMarco into the boat. The three women
collapsed together -- exhausted. Their outboard motor putted in reassurance, like
a kindly goddess watching over them as they drifted in the lee of a painted sky.
A distraught voice promptly ended this tiny eon of recovery. "Drake!" it
screeched. "What going on? -- answer me!" The radio voice had been
demanding attention and obedience for several minutes.

Sgt. Susan Drake gathered up what strength she had, and hauled herself to the
stern. "This is Drake, 31," she said into the mic. "Blackie aboard. I revived her.
Over."

"Get the hell out of there! Get out to sea!"

"Understood. Drake, 31. Out."

Dinky grabbed the tiller and twisted it. Her pals slumped to the side and their
inflatable boat lifted to a steep pitch. "Get up front, Cubby!" she commanded, as
they flew toward a shrinking crescent of orange, wilted sun. It would be dark in
less than an hour. Good. Half an hour to cruise, then pull the boat ashore,
moonlight to travel on dirt roads. It'll work. No one behind us in the water. No
one in the air. So far so good, Drake noted in stunned satisfaction. Jesus Christ,
we did it…!

DiMarco coughed again. Her throat and chest hurt like hell, along with a half
dozen tendons, the back of her neck, and the whole left side of her body, which
she vaguely remembered twisting to take the impact, like landing in a practice
sand pit. Except that the ocean was a hell of a lot harder than a sand pit.
DiMarco tentatively attempted to move, checking arms and legs. They worked.
Just sore -- mostly her hip. She rolled to brace herself against the boat and tried
to sit. Too much work. But she made it halfway up, one forearm wrapped tightly
over the wide thwart, cheek cushioned by the back of her other hand. Riding in
these damn boats is no fun when you're hurt, she griped stupidly. Noise and
spray were all she perceived. They were all that Janet DiMarco needed or
wanted at the moment, after being drowned and dead for three minutes. One
minute longer -- and that would have been that, tootsie. The End. Somebody tell
me it was worth it.

"You moron!" Cubby said. "You coulda been killed!"

DiMarco turned her head and looked up at her partner. Cubby was staring
straight ahead, glancing port and starboard and around the haze of deepening
twilight -- and occasionally scowling over her shoulder in Janet's direction,
checking on her. At the other end of the boat, sitting at DiMarco's feet like a
devoted servant, Dinky's clear green eyes were doing the same thing, scanning
the ocean and occasionally beaming with pride at the boss. Drake's undisguised
admiration brought the boss back to reality and gave her something tangible to
think about. Lt. Janet DiMarco, from the moment that she regained
consciousness, was legally in command of this boat. She was also freezing cold
and shivering.

"Slo..!" she croaked at Dinky, then tried again. "Slow down, Susan! That's an
order. I need a blanket. I'm in shock."

Dinky eased the throttle back and her eyes foreshadowed an unpleasant
thunderstorm ahead. Cubby was standing midships, hands busy in the locker
compartment. "Here, asshole…!" she barked, throwing a blanket at Fearless
Leader. "I shoulda held you under, instead of pulling you out, you stupid cunt!"
Cubby griped bitterly, refusing to make eye contact.

"Thank you, Sergeant," DiMarco answered weakly. She struggled with the
blanket, got it wrapped snuggly with Dinky's prompt, one-handed assistance.
"Carry on, Sue." The motor cranked up again, its prop digging deeply into the
slippery Pacific and ploughing a wide white wake. Spray lept and sparkled red
and ochre in the last bit of sundown.

At Nosara International, things were a lot less calm.

To appreciate the difference between a moral decision and its collateral
consequences, we need to rewind the story. It begins with sirens, helicopters,
and radio traffic.

"City One, say again… City One, say again… All aircraft, Nosara Tower is
declaring an emergency. All aircraft, standby on 1250, repeat 1250. City One,
do you copy Nosara? We have you about five miles from the outer marker.
DLS is operational and go. City One, do not abort this DLS approach…"

A helicopter gunship from Samara was first to intercept. The Falcon was a dark
gray and white silhouette, framed against a brilliant yellow sunset. The gunship
crew and its cigar-chomping commander did not see anything fall from City One
while they banked and dove to inspect the slow-moving jet. "Flaps are fully
extended," the pilot reported. "Flying straight and level, pretty much right on the
glide path, Nosara."

Fire Captain Jake Kaiser was first to roll on the ground, slamming his command
car into gear and racing to 21 Left. "Get that FedEx '67 out of there!" he
screamed at Ground Control. "Order him to turn right and roll straight through on
the fire lane, head for Terminal One. Freeze everybody at the gates! Evacuate
Sansa and Taca immediately via the north doors. Do it instantly! Tell 'em to run!
Have somebody pull a fire alarm in there, and get those people out!"

Emmett Seldon's brain sampled five different frequencies and crunched the big
picture. His finger pressed the button on his headset cable, hard enough to break
it. It locked on 'Transmit' and had to be torn from the cabin circuits by brute
force, because it jammed the ops channel in Seldon's helicopter, after he
bellowed: "Berisch! Fly straight for 21 Left and put me down next to the fire
trucks! Notify the tower. I want Harris to seal off that runway. Nobody in or
out! Total news blackout, effective immediately! You see a camera, impound it!
Arrest and jail anybody with a press pass. Shut off the webcams, uplinks, and
phone service. Take over the PA system and say nothing to anyone! This is a
declared Special Force non-event, understand?"

On the screen in front of her at Delta check-in, Connie Esquival saw a Code
Red crash emergency on 21 Left. Her boyfriend, Luis, was a firefighter. He was
on duty. He would be in the first truck to respond. Connie hestitated -- then ran
from the counter, court shoes and dark blue jacket flying through the ticketing
hall, to the south Emergency Exit. When she forced the door open, an alarm rang
loudly, and a hundred passengers in the waiting lounge gaped at the miracle of a
petite female breaking sacrosanct safety rules. Sirens and airhorns shrieked
through the open door and drowned the cheery mood music in Delta Ticketing.
A pop marked the death of the PA system. The music ceased altogether. By
mistake, after a confusing string of verbal orders, the Special thug in the
basement also disabled Terminal One's fresh air handlers and the
Delta-American Reservations network. These were murdered in lieu of a rugged
standby phone router, which required an elusive password. Telecom service
continued without interruption for another hour, allowing a forty-one year old
Associated Press stringer to win a Pulitzer Prize -- awarded posthumously. It
was his first big story and it cost him his life. He was the second man to die at
Nosara International on the eve of civil war. Connie Esquival was the first to be
injured.

Seven desperate minutes were shaved and infinitely subdivided by Roger Ortega,
Chief Pilot, from the moment that his red All Areas ID was scanned in Corridor
Six, popping doors in every direction. Roger skidded and bounced off the
doorjamb into 607A, home of the Digital Landing System -- basically, a heuristic
DIL-9000 hooked to a generic flight simulator. It could emulate and fly anything
that had wings and a cockpit DLS fly-by-wire interface, which most commercial
jets retrofitted a decade ago. If the Falcon was about to land on 21 Left, instead
of crashing somewhere on the beach, it was because DLS robotics had locked
out pilot control of the aircraft. The only human being who could intervene now
was Roger Ortega. He scrambled into the simulator chair. It faced a vectograph
screen of inadequate size. He could barely see the runway. He didn't dare to
take the controls, until he understood where the aircraft was, and whether 'Dilly'
was threatening to hiccup another Page Error Fault -- whatever that was! For
nine years, every service tech shrugged the same thing: "It's an IBM. They get
confused once in a while. Just reboot." Not now, Roger prayed, not now! -
please, not now! Hang in there, Dilly, you can do it… Just another mile to go!
You can do it! I know you can! Get your nose up a little… Yeah!… Steady!…
Okay, okay… Power back! Spoilers! Brakes…!

Ortega's cheerleading oral support did nothing for his DIL-9000. The Falcon
rolled to a crawl on 21 Left and stopped. When Dilly finally hiccupped, all three
engines were off, and City One was surrounded by fire equipment. Cobra
gunships circled above, like mechanical vultures, hungry for blood. One of these
heavy scavengers swooped down a few yards from the Falcon, and Col. Seldon
hit the ground running with a drawn .45.

"JANET!" he roared at his life-enemy, his nemesis.

No reply.

Seldon fired five times at the cockpit, spidering the glass and holing the fuselage.
Then he realized that the Falcon had no stairway… no door… no pilot. She
must have locked to the DLS and escaped on approach -- jumped --
rendezvous'd with Rice! --

After five shots, heard by many, came one that was barely audible. In the
absence of its intended target, the projectile was discharged at the next best thing
-- strictly a matter of chance opportunity. A steel-jacketed, high-powered slug
sang briefly and removed most of Emmett Seldon's face, striking him from
behind -- exactly the same marksmanship that hunted and killed Chief Justice Leo
DiMarco, on the same, wide stretch of runway, three days ago. Col. Emmett
Seldon became Victim No. 9 in the Triple Peak case. His second in command,
Maj. Anthony Harris, Deputy Chief of Special Force, became the City's
Commander-In-Chief pro tempore, under martial law that was declared when
the Falcon entered LFC airspace.

When Seldon buckled and died, Major Harris witnessed the killing aboard a
Cobra circling 21 Left. His chunky build was a deficit when it came to flying, or
twisting to squint through a scuffed plastic visor -- but it was a formidable asset in
hand-to-hand combat. His nickname in the corps was 'Hammer' Harris.

Analyzing reports and surveillance data, Special Ops determined that the shot
that killed Seldon was fired from the roof or from one of the top floors of the
Nosara Hilton. Harris ordered his Cobra pilot into battle, coordinating a rush of
troops and machines on the ground. When more shots were fired -- they
multiplied into plain chaos. Tico shopkeepers slammed their doors shut, and two
Special Force men in the wrong place at the wrong time were felled by
buckshot. It became a long, lonely night of combat that roamed Center Street, B
Street, and much of the Valley, like a firework display of gaudy neon and
bluish-white flashes, a rolling tempest of sirens and screams and insistent
automatic gunfire. 'Hammer' Harris was pleased and proud. He traded a noisy
helicopter for a much noisier halftrack at his base in Samara, and rode into
Nosara like Nero astride a diesel chariot, rolling gaily over blazing barricades of
car tires and crap furniture that stank when it burned. Let 'em burn it to the
ground, Harris grinned at downtown Nosara, with the conviction of a sly
certainty that Lord Black would be pleased. Very pleased indeed.

This night was the end of all pretense and charade, like a dull, heavy, oppressive
mist that finally ends its torture by unleashing a thunderstorm -- a pounding,
desperate battle of Nature against men. The men in question were Emmett
Seldon's choice of comrades: the few, the proud, the Special Force commandos
who pushed buttons and stood guard in victory at Tempisque and Pilas Blancas --
and did nothing much after the War, except eat and get fatter and throw their
weight around. For almost twenty years, they had been paraded as heroes. In
reality, Special Force was an old boy network of mercenaries and dope pushers,
gunrunners and goons -- allegedly protecting the City and its Chief Executive, but
dealing in practical power on the side. Half of the crime in Nosara was created
by Special Force or inspired by their lawless example. Seldon's killer got a
sweet bargain tonight. He put a killer in command, and 'Hammer' Harris
unleashed the hell of military power in the streets of Nosara. Punks and
shopkeepers in Center Street fought back -- in confusion and panic, a cyclone of
fear that whipped up an irresistible social thunderhead that turned inward and
exploded, using the weapons that everybody had hoarded at the urging of
Special 'friends' and neighbors. Until tonight, Nosara and Atlantis enjoyed what
all mixed-race communities aimed to achieve: peace and harmony -- because the
courts and a couple dozen City cops wanted it that way. Not because it was 'the
law' to love thy neighbor. Not because it made sense financially. Not because
public order served the greatest pleasure of the greatest number -- but the
reverse: It served the interests of justice, defended and defined by nine old
women and a handful of civilian police on patrol.

Tonight, with the City Police force scattered and exiled, driven out by Special
Force, there was no love of neighbor -- only random attacks by trigger-happy
goons -- no sense of hope; no greater good beyond terror and death, a cowering
chaos of revenge. A free city never does this willingly.

Clinging to a hard rubber bench that vibrated painfully, miles from shore in
darkness, Detective Janet DiMarco suddenly perked up. She lifted her eyes to
the first star she saw in the wide, eternal sky. It was Venus -- as bright as any
human achievement, as simple and dependable as sunshine in the dry season, or
solid sheets of rain in September. This is a game, she reasoned. An evil
sideshow. Victim No. 2 was a code developer, tortured to death. No
steel-jacketed slug. Victim No. 5 was a janitor at the Eagles Nest, iced to get his
access card on a Friday night, wasn't reported until Tuesday. No steel-jacketed
slug. So, there's at least two killers, probably working independently -- and one
of them is an assassin, a sharpshooter -- not some Special Force donut boy -- a
professional hired to make me run in circles, like a flatfoot. No wonder Seldon
bungled it, couldn't see it as anything other than Trabucco trying to hit Archie.
But Archie was never a target -- partly because he didn't let down his guard,
okay -- but more importantly because no one is a personal target. We all are.
Anybody in the public eye, including me, just to create panic and keep us busy,
chasing after a jackal -- a professional who's so good, we'll never catch him.
And it's not anybody hired by Trabucco. Archie's completely wrong about his
uncle. I take Skinny's word for it -- Trabucco is a nice, fat, incompetent grafter.
Whoever's behind this, they've got brains, a hell of a lot more money than
Trabucco, and they're after something at the Eagles Nest. They must be. It's the
only theory that fits all the facts. What could anybody want to steal at a stock
exchange? And why go on a terrorist shooting spree, if it's about money? It
can't be about money. There isn't any physical money at the Eagles Nest -- just
ones and zeroes. How do I get up the Mountain? It's patrolled by Seldon's men,
physically sealed off, and laced with electronics. They can detect a mouse fart at
a thousand yards.

I'll have to find Dad. He'll know what to do.

In the boat behind her, Susan Drake changed hands again on the tiller, to flex
and pull the impression of a hard knurled throttle from her flesh, wondering how
to tell Janet DiMarco that her father -- like her mother, twelve years ago -- had
been murdered by a paid assassin.


[end of file]