"I aim it at the bad guys while I press the trigger b.u.t.ton."

"You've got it."

John came into the room and asked, "What's the plan so far, people?"

"They'll act like reporters," said Alan, nodding at Mandi and Cade. "If they can disarm the situation, they will. If not, they'll continue to act like reporters and we'll try something else."

A man came trotting into the room to hand Alan a couple of laminated press badges. He stood by as Alan examined them, then he led the real newspeople out of the room.

Handing one of the badges to Mandi, Alan said, "You're Mary Winston, intrepid reporter for WNN." Handing the other badge to Cade, he said, "And you're Grant Parker from Channel Nine. This will be called a cooperative news effort."

Turning to John, he said, "If anyone was watching, they saw the real Grant and Winston rush over here."

Nodding, John said, "Okay, then. Check the gear and confirm the feeds to WNN and Nine. There'll be some deliberate static in the first few seconds and an excuse will be made about adjusting the signal, then we'll switch the feed to an in-house loop. While our terrorists are watching themselves being interviewed on TV, anyone outside will be taken back to whatever was on before."

Chapter Six

Cade left his coat and gun with John, and for appearances' sake, both Mandi and Cade were taken to the doorway of 831 to let the terrorists see them putting on Kevlar vests as they received plat.i.tudinous encouragements.

When they were finally sent into the room, Hamad Marjeel stopped them at the doorway and one of his men quickly frisked them for weapons and checked their gear before allowing them to pa.s.s. The man then shoved ahead of them into the room to take up a position at one side of the bed.

Marjeel and the other two men appeared to be in their twenties and thirties and wore western clothing. All were clean-shaven and only their weapons and att.i.tudes made them look more like terrorists than a trio of off-duty yuppies.

As Mandi and Cade emerged from the room's short hallway past the bathroom, they saw two women in their sixties lying stiffly on the bed. A man on each side of the bed held a pistol aimed at each woman's head and Marjeel held a black Beretta 9mm pistol aimed generally between Mandi and Cade.

In a tone dripping with disdain, Marjeel said, "Welcome, friends of the media. Before we begin, do you understand that your function here is merely to record my words, and not to speak unless invited to do so?"

"Yes," said Mandi.

Cade had been examining the side of his camera. He b.u.mped it once with the heel of his hand, listened to it for a moment, then looked up and nodded as he said, "Sure."

"Are you having difficulties with your camera?"

"Well, it seems okay now. Your guy, there, may have yanked something too hard while he was messing with it."

"Are you sure it will work properly? Do you need another?"

Holding the camera up and aiming at the ceiling, Cade pulled the trigger. A red 'record' light came on at the front.

"Looks like it's working now," said Cade. "I couldn't get the one I wanted to use for this. Somebody probably has it out on the loop, shooting traffic footage or..."

"Quiet!" snapped Marjeel. Turning to Mandi, he asked, "Are you ready to begin?"

"Yes," said Mandi, thumbing the mike's 'on' switch.

"Yeah. Locked and loaded," said Cade, patting the camera.

His comment drew narrow glances from Marjeel and one of the other terrorists, which likely meant that the one who'd ignored his words hadn't understood the term. Maybe he didn't speak English? Or maybe he just didn't speak it well.

Mandi stood in front of the camera long enough to introduce herself as Mary Winston of WNN and introduce Hamad Marjeel according to what he'd written on a sheet of hotel stationery, then she stepped aside and let him have center stage.

Marjeel began reading from a prepared speech that dragged on for a good twenty minutes. It was full of catchwords and phrases dear to the hearts of America-bashers everywhere, but it also contained quite a bit of Islamic religious rhetoric.

He started the speech conversationally enough in firm tones, but soon he began to sound a bit strident, and by the time he hit the third or fourth page, he sounded a h.e.l.luva lot like Adolf Hitler, almost ranting at the camera.

The speech ended rather abruptly and Marjeel seemed to compose himself in silence for some moments before saying, "Now it is time to prove yet again to the Great Satan America that we are not only willing to kill, we are willing to die."

He'd barely begun to turn toward the bed when Cade let up on the camera's trigger, again whacked the side of the camera, and said, "Hey, wait one. d.a.m.n.

Can we get another take on that last bit?"

Everybody was looking at him as if he was crazy, including Mandi. Cade thumped the camera again and triggered it briefly, making the light flicker, then thumped it again.

"Well, that's it," said Cade. "Did we get enough?"

Raising his pistol, Marjeel thundered, "Do you wish to die?!"

One of the guys by the bed -- the possible non-English speaker -- also aimed his gun at Cade and the other guy's gun wavered from the woman who'd been his target.

Holding the camera in both hands as if offering it to Marjeel, Cade said, "Well, here, dude. You try to make it work."

When Marjeel grabbed for the camera's handle, Cade shoved the camera at Marjeel's face like a basketball. Launching himself right behind the camera, Cade drove Marjeel across the room and to the floor, his left hand locked on the wrist of Marjeel's gun hand and his right grasping the front of the terrorist's shirt.

They landed hard, both of Cade's knees tightly together in the center of Marjeel's stomach as his back hit the floor. A loud, shouting groan escaped Marjeel on impact and his body tried to curl up, but Cade was in the way.

When Marjeel wouldn't let go of the gun and tried to shove Cade off, Cade rammed an elbow straight down into his throat, then forced Marjeel's gun arm over the camera and leaned on it. There was a sickening snap of bone, Marjeel shrieked, and Cade was at last able to pry the gun out of his fingers.

Marjeel tried a rather inept left-handed punch at Cade, so Cade swatted him in the temple with the Beretta to calm him down. Raising his head, Cade looked around.

Mandi was standing beside them. Both of the other gunmen were down and their guns were in Mandi's hands. The two hostages were sitting up, barely beginning to realize that their danger was over as what seemed like a dozen more people in SWAT gear flooded the room.

Cade rolled off Marjeel and got to his feet, handing the gun to one of the SWAT guys. Marjeel feebly tried to spit at Cade, but missed. He still seemed a bit disoriented.

John walked up and extended a hand to Mandi, then to Cade, and said, "Good job, people. Great job."

"Thanks," said Mandi.

"Yeah," said Cade. "I'll be down the hall."

"Okay," said John, "See you in a few."

Mandi looked after him quizzically as he left the room and asked John, "Is he okay?"

"Sure," said John. "He's like that, that's all. A few minutes from now he'll be his usual cheery self."

'His usual cheery self, huh?' thought Cade with a small grin as he entered the hall and headed for 835. 'Up yours, John.'

The guy at the camera console in 835 looked up as Cade came in and started to say something, but Cade raised a hand and said, "Play it back for me. Show me what she did."

Nodding, the guy hit rewind as he said, "Good job in there."

Another 'good job'. d.a.m.n all overused phrases.

"Thanks."

When the scene on screen had reversed to Cade holding the camera, the guy hit 'play'. Cade kept his eyes on Mandi as the action proceeded. She seemed to leave the floor and lean slightly forward before she almost disappeared completely.

The black and blue colors of Mandi's Kevlar jacket and dress seemed to stretch across the room to the first gunman and continued streaking across the bed to the second gunman.

Both men fell to the floor at about the same time and the blur came to a stop by the men struggling on the floor. Mandi stood holding both mens' pistols as she watched Marjeel and Cade scuffle.

"Jeeezus!" breathed the console guy.

"Try it at half-speed," said Cade.

The guy stopped the tape and rewound, then set the speed bar and played it again. Mandi was still blurred, but vaguely identifiable as a blonde in a blue dress instead of simply a streak across the screen. They were still unable to see what, exactly, she'd done to the gunmen.

"Jeeezus!" the console guy muttered again. Checking his watch against the tape counter, he said, "When you made your move, she took the other two out in less than three-tenths of a second!"

"Yeah, she's pretty quick," agreed Cade. "Thanks."

He turned from the screen and went to the bathroom, took a leak and washed Marjeel's taint from his hands, then combed his hair and headed back out to the bedroom.

Half a dozen people were cl.u.s.tered around the console, playing and replaying Mandi's part of the action and making various amazed comments about her as she appeared in the doorway. For a few moments she watched and listened to them, then she looked at Cade.

"Are you all right?" she asked.

As Cade said, "Yup," some of the awe-struck people turned to stare at her.

Two men hurried over to her, raving about how she'd handled the two gunmen so quickly and helping her out of her Kevlar vest.

Another guy pulled open the closures on Cade's jacket and took it, then Cade left Mandi to her adulation and went to climb back into his shoulder rig and field jacket, tossing his phony 'press' badge on the bed.

John came in and momentarily joined the group by the console, then went to stand by Cade and asked, "She's really something, isn't she?"

"Oh, h.e.l.l, yes, John. Every bit of something. How's your picture-collecting coming along?"

"I can only tell you what I told her. Our people are working on it. So far we've recovered five sets at WNN alone."

"It doesn't look good for total containment, huh?"

Shaking his head, John said, "Honestly? No, it doesn't. And if they get to the internet, we can forget about it."

"No s.h.i.t. John, do you remember the Marilyn Monroe and Elvis look-alike contests back in the sixties?"

He shrugged. "Yeah. Vaguely, I guess."

"They happened all over the country. If Mandi's pictures get out, maybe the thing to do is hold contests in L.A., Vegas, and all the major cities as quickly as possible. Send up some chaff. Make Mandi Steele-wannabes all over the place and give her a nationwide crowd to get lost in; otherwise she'll have to hide between missions in order to have any privacy at all. Now tell me something, John."

"What's that?"

"Tell me why didn't you just let her buzz into the room and grab all the guns. I've seen the tape. With a running start from the hallway she could have zapped them all in half a second or less and been out of there."

With a straight face, John said, "It was felt that we needed a distraction to minimize risk."

"And I need taller boots. Just tell me you aren't going to tell me, John.

Don't bulls.h.i.t me."

Nodding, John said, "Okay. I can't tell you."

"That means someone else is in command of this op. Someone I don't know. I really don't like that, John."

Sighing slightly, John said, "Well, I don't either, but you know it isn't the first time and it won't be the last."

"Can you tell me who's running the show?"

"Not at this time."

"That sucks, John."

Nodding again, John said, "That's how I see it, too, but that's how it is."

Someone called to John from the doorway and John excused himself, patting Mandi's shoulder on the way past her and saying, "Thanks again for your help."

Mandi shortly disengaged from her SWAT fan club and joined Cade by the bed.

"Is everything all right?" she asked.

"No," said Cade. "John can't tell me who's running this op."

"Neither can I," said Mandi. "Alan's getting his orders from John and won't admit to knowing anything else. Does it really matter who's at the top?"

"It does to me, but as long as John's in my command chain, I'll go along with things. Do you have dinner plans?"

"Yes. Some of the people from my group are going to DelMonico's around seven if nothing else happens. Want to come with us?"

"No, thanks," he pulled the DragonCon schedule halfway out of his pocket, "I'm gonna disappear before they let the news people out and go find some food.

There are a couple of things I want to check out between seven and nine."