"Be smart for a moment. Shut up." To the MPs he said, "Tailor shop."

"Right." They grabbed me between them, one on each sideone hand under the armpit, the other under the elbow-and we moved. They held me like I was furniture; it didn't matter if I moved my feet or not to keep up-we moved. Curly took the lead, angling right into a dark service corridor, then left into a broom closet, opening up a door where no door should be.

We stepped through and there was silence. We were in darkness.

"Wait a minute." Curly was punching something into a wall terminal. Dim red ceiling lights came up and I could see we were in another corridor, only this one was featureless. To the MPs he said, "You can let go of him now. You, come with me."

I followed him into a small room. There were a desk and two chairs. He slapped his clipboard down onto the desk and sat down behind it. He pointed at the other chair and I sat down too. He opened a drawer and pulled out a pack of cigarettes, shook one out and lit it. He did not offer one to me.

So-this was to be an interrogation.

I remembered something I had seen in a movie. I leaned forward and shook a cigarette out of the pack for myself.

"I didn't say you could smoke."

"You didn't say I couldn't." I glared back at him.

He grinned abruptly. "It won't work. I saw the same movie." I shrugged and stubbed the cigarette out. "I don't smoke anyway."

He didn't laugh. He let the grin fade and studied me for a moment, thoughtfully. At last he said, "You have something for me?"

"Huh?"

"You were trying to find me this morning, weren't you?" He tapped his chest.

"Huh?" And then I saw it. His name badge. WALLACHSTEIN. "Oh!" I said, realizing. "But the directory said you don't exist."

"You better believe it." His chair creaked alarmingly when he leaned back. "I'm not even here now. This is all a hallucination you're having. Now, I believe you have something for me?" He held out his hand.

I was still smarting. I folded my arms. "I want some answers first."

His hand was still outstretched. "Listen, stupid, you're in big trouble, so be a good boy for a while and maybe I can get you out of here quietly. Maybe." The air had gotten noticeably chillier.

"I didn't ask to be rescued from anything. You dragged me in here against my will-"

"You want to go back? That can be arranged too. Just give me the package that Obie gave you, and Sergeants Kong and G.o.dzilla will put you right back in the center of what you started. Although I think you'd be a lot better off with us. We did you a favor and you might want to say thank you."

"Yeah-and I might want to say 'f.u.c.k you' too! I'm getting really tired of all the 'oughts' and 'shoulds' and 'musts' that are being dropped on me. And all without explanations. n.o.body ever explains anything. And then you get p.i.s.sed off because I'm not following the rules! So f.u.c.k you! I was told that if I couldn't find you I should destroy the package. Well, I couldn't find you. You don't exist. Now, which way is out-?"

"Sit down, Jim," he said. "You made your point. Besides, the door's locked until I'm ready to unlock it."

It was his use of my name that stopped me.

He'd been expecting me. And something else-he'd purposely sat down next to me in the auditorium! And the MPs too! They'd had me bracketed since ...

"How long?" I asked.

"How long till I unlock the door?"

"No. How long have you-whoever you are-been watching me?"

"Oh, that. Since about three minutes after you checked my name in the directory. You've been under surveillance ever since.

"The woman on my right-the one during Dr. Zymph's presentation?"

"Uh huh, and the two lieutenants on your left as well. I don't know what you're carrying, but Obie says it's important." He added, "I don't mind telling you that I'm curious to see what Obie thinks is too dangerous to send over a wire-even a secure and coded one." He leaned forward to drop his cigarette into an ashtray. "May I have it, please?"

I took a breath. I exhaled. "Yeah, I guess so."

He raised an eyebrow at me. "No more argument?"

"You called her Obie."

Wallachstein grinned. "You know something? You're not so stupid."

I pulled out the lockbox and pa.s.sed it over to him. He turned it over and laid it face down on the desk. I didn't see exactly what he did with his fingers, but the back of it slid off, revealing a thin false bottom. There was a single memory clip inside. Wallachstein picked it out and dropped it into his jacket pocket as casually as if it were something he did every day; then he looked up and noticed my expression. "Something the matter?"

"Uh, I've never seen one like that."

"And you'll probably never see another one either."

"Can I ask why? The false bottom, I mean."

"Sure. These things aren't too difficult to break into, not for a skilled laboratory." He turned it over and slid it across. "Here. What's your birthday? Punch it in."

"My birthday?"

He nodded. I tapped it out on the keyboard and the box popped open. Inside was a package of fifty thousand-casey notes. "Happy birthday," he said.

"Huh?"

"Courier fee. You got your message through without being killed. The money's unimportant. It's just a decoy, in case you lose the box. The wrong person opens it; he thinks that's what's being transported. Burn the paper wrapper-just in case they're not fooled by the money, there's a microdot on the wrapper. It's nothing but a very long random-number sequence. You could go crazy trying to decode it, because it won't. It's just hash. Another decoy. A practical joke, even-but the idea is to distract the enemy, draw him away from the real trick. We're all so marvelously subtle these days-on both sides-that no one stops to think there might be an easier way."

"Uh . . . sir . . . the enemy?"

"You've already met them. Out there." He pointed at the door. He dropped the money out of the box onto the table before me and slid the box into a desk drawer. "Go ahead, take it. Better spend it before it goes completely worthless."

"Uh, shouldn't I be discreet? I mean, won't people wonder where it came from?"

"Don't bother. n.o.body else does. We're all stealing from the dead one way or another anyway. n.o.body's going to question you." He picked up his clipboard and stood up, all in one motion. "I'm going to ask you to wait here while I go and see what's on this." He tapped his jacket pocket meaningfully. "You want coffee?"

"Yeah, thanks."

"Right." He was already out the door.

He'd given me a lot to think about. Just what was going on here? What had I stumbled into? And how was I going to get out?

I tried the door. He'd locked it behind him. I sat down again. Then I got up and tried the drawers on the desk. They were locked too. I shrugged and went back to my chair. Then I wondered if I'd done something stupid. Did the walls of this room have eyes as well as ears? I hoped I hadn't picked my nose in front of one of their cameras.

The door to the room slid open and one of the two MPs came in carrying a tray. He closed the door behind him, crossed to the desk and set the tray down. He pushed it toward me: a pot of coffee, one cup, a cream pitcher, a sugar bowl and a spoon. He sat down in the chair behind the desk, folded his arms casually and leaned back in the chair. It complained loudly. He stared at me.

I poured myself a cup of coffee and tasted it carefully. Ugh! Had they sent all the way back to Sergeant Kelly's kitchen for this?

"Well. Here we are," I said. "Uh, are you Sergeant Kong or Sergeant G.o.dzilla?"

He opened his mouth and said, "Shut up." I shut.

It was a very uncomfortable half-hour. At least, it felt like a half-hour. We sat and glowered at each other the whole time. At last Colonel Wallachstein came back. He motioned Sergeant Kong-or maybe it was G.o.dzilla-out of the room with a jerk of his head and sat down at the desk again. He pushed the coffee tray to one side without even looking at it. He waited until the door was closed before he said, "I believe you. About the fourth Chtorran. You've had a rough time of it, haven't you?"

I shrugged. "Who hasn't?"

"You'd be surprised. The world's full of opportunists. Never mind. Obie says you're okay. She also asked me to honor the obligation. If I thought it appropriate."

"Obligation?"

"I think she may have mentioned it already. Every member of the Special Forces not only has the right, but the obligation, to understand the responsibilities of his orders-"

"You mean I have the right to ask questions after all?"

He nodded. "And I have the responsibility to answer them."

"Well, it's about time. Yeah, I have a lot of questions. First of all, just what the h.e.l.l is going on? Not just here, but out there? Why won't any of those bozos take the Chtorrans seriously? And-"

He held up a hand to slow me down. He waited until my questions petered out on their own. He looked unhappy. "I said, 'if I thought it appropriate.' I'm sorry, but I don't. Not yet. Maybe not at all. You're a real pain in the a.s.s, you know that? Unfortunately . . ."

"Unfortunately what?"

He glanced at me wryly. "Unfortunately, you're a smart pain in the a.s.s." He looked unhappy. He looked at his watch and looked even unhappier. "I don't know what to do with you. And I have to get back. I have to monitor something this afternoon. I hate to leave you hanging, but I don't have any choice-and I'm sorry, but it wouldn't be a good idea for you to go back to the conference. Not today, at least. There're a few people looking for you, and not too many of them are friendly. We still have to figure out how to handle this-what you started. Um, listen, I'll arrange for you to monitor the rest of the conference by remote, and we'll cover your disappearance for a couple of days too. At least until Tuesday when most of the foreign delegates are on their way out. I owe you that much at least. And maybe by then I'll have figured out what to do with you."

"Uh, don't I get any say in the matter?"

"Haven't you said enough today?"

"All I did was stand up and ask a question. I still haven't gotten any answers."

"Did it ever occur to you that there may not be any to give?" He stood up. "You wait here." And he exited again.

This time I didn't have to wait as long. The door slid open and Major Lizard Tirelli stuck her head in. "McCarthy?"

"Huh? Yeah-hi!"

She looked annoyed. "Come on," she said. I followed her out into the darkened hall and to the right. Now where were we going? The door was back the other way.

We stopped in front of an elevator alcove. The door slid open at our approach. I followed her in. There was only a single b.u.t.ton on the control panel. She pressed it and the door closed. The elevator slid upward.

"Where are we going?"

"Thirteenth floor," she said.

"Huh? Hotels don't have thirteenth floors."

"This one does," she said. Her voice was brittle. Obviously, she didn't want to talk. At least, not to me.

I shut up and we rode the rest of the way in silence.

TWENTY-FOUR.

THE THIRTEENTH floor looked like any other floor of the hotel-except it only had one elevator door.

My dad had told me about controlled-access architecture a long time ago. I'd just never seen any firsthand. Apparently, the builders of this hotel had intended the architectural camouflage for business purposes, probably to provide a floor of private suites and offices for visiting dignitaries and other celebrities who needed tight security.

If someone were to notice that there was a physical gap between twelve and fourteen, and were to ask about it-and he'd probably have to walk the fire stairs to figure it out-he'd probably be told it was a "service area." Which it was, sort of. He just wouldn't be told what service. The purloined letter again. Like a lockbox with a false bottom.

I would bet, however, that the present occupants of the thirteenth floor were not the ones for which it had been originally intended. Or were they?

We stopped before a featureless gray metal door. Room 1313. "Am I going to be locked in?" I asked.

Lizard ignored me as she slid the room card into the slot. She punched a number and the door slid open. She handed me the card. "You can change the combination if you want. You can leave if you want."

"But I thought-"

"What?"

"-that Colonel Wallachstein wanted me to wait."

"Who?"

"Colonel Wallachstein-the man who pulled me out of the auditorium and interrogated me and-"

She stepped close to me. "Listen, stupid. The man you're talking about doesn't exist. There's n.o.body in Denver by that name. Do you understand?"

No, I didn't. "Uh, I guess so. Can I ask something?"

She looked annoyed and impatient. "What is it?"

"What the h.e.l.l is going on?"

"I can't answer that."

"Am I under arrest?"