So Ingram probably had a car waiting, to drive his victim out into the country to dispose of her.

The next stage depended on luck. The Indium system that provided global communication by way of a fleet of low-flying satellites had been quietly co-opted by the government after the start of the Ngumi War; all of the satellites had been replaced by dual-function ones: they still took care of phone service, but each one also spied continuously on the strip of land it pa.s.sed over. Had one of them pa.s.sed over Omaha, over Grand Street, just before midnight on the 11th?

She wasn't military, but she had access to Indium pictures through Blaisdell's office. After a few minutes of sorting, she had an image of the cab leaving and the black mechanic getting into the back seat of a long black limousine. The next shot was a low angle that showed the limousine's license plate: North Dakota 101 Clergy. In less than a minute, she had it traced to St. Bartholomew's.

That was strange enough, but her course was clear. She already had a bag packed with a business suit and a frilly dress, two changes of underwear, and a knife and a gun made completely of plastic. There was also a jar of vitamins with enough poison to murder a small town. In less than an hour she was in the air, headed for the crater city Seaside and its mysterious monastery. St. Bartholomew's had some military connection, but General Blaisdell didn't have high enough clearance to find out what it was. It occurred to her that she might be getting in over her head. She prayed for guidance, and G.o.d told her in his stern fatherly voice that she was doing the right thing. Stay your course and don't fear dying. Dying is just coming home.

She knew Ingram; he was a third of her cell-and she knew how much better he was at mayhem. She had killed more than twenty sinners in service to the Lord, but always at a distance or protected by extremely close contact. G.o.d had gifted her with great s.e.xual attractiveness, and she used it as a weapon, allowing sinners in between her legs while she reached under the pillow for the crystal knife. Men who don't close their eyes when they e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.e will close their eyes a moment later. If she was on her back with the man above her, she would embrace him with her left arm and men drive the dagger into his kidney. He would straighten up in tetanic shock, his p.e.n.i.s trying to e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.e again, and she could sweep the razor-keen blade across his throat. When he sagged, she would make sure both carotid arteries were severed.

Sitting in the plane, she put her knees together and squeezed, remembering how the last dying thrust felt. It probably didn't hurt the man too much, it was over so fast, and he faced an eternity of torment anyhow. She had never done it to anyone who had taken Jesus as his Savior. Instead of being washed in the Blood of the Lamb, they drowned in their own. Atheists and adulterers, they deserved even worse.

Once a man had almost escaped, a pervert she had allowed to engage her from behind. She'd had to half-turn and stab him in the heart, but she didn't have full force or good aim, and the point of the knife broke off in his breastbone. She dropped the knife and he ran for the door, and might have run naked and bleeding into me hotel corridor, but she had double-locked it, and while he was struggling with the combination of latches, she retrieved the knife and reached around him and slashed open his abdomen. He was a gross fat man, and an incredible mess spilled out. He made a lot of noise dying, while she knelt helplessly sick in the bathroom, but the hotel was evidently well soundproofed. She left by way of window and fire escape, and the morning news said that the man, a well-connected city commissioner, had died at home, peacefully, in his sleep. His wife and children had been full of praise for him. A G.o.dless swine too fat to engage a woman normally. He had even pretended to pray before they had s.e.x, currying favor because of her crucifix, and then expected her to use her mouth to make him ready. It was while she was doing that, that she had savored the image of splitting him open. But her hate hadn't prepared her for the multicolored jumble of gore.

Well, this one would be clean. She had killed women twice before, each one a merciful pistol shot to the head. She would do that and then escape or not. She hoped she wouldn't have to kill Ingram, a stern but nice man who had never looked at her with l.u.s.t. He was still a man, though, and it was possible that this redheaded professor had led him astray.

It was after midnight by the time she got to Seaside. She got a room at the hotel closest to St. Bartholomew's, slightly more than a kilometer away, and walked over to take a look.

The place was completely dark and silent. Not surprising for a monastery, she supposed, so she went back to the hotel and slept for a few hours.

One minute after 8:00, she phoned the place, and got an answering machine. The same at 8:30.

She put on her weapons and walked over and rang the doorbell at 9:00. No response. She walked completely around the building and saw no sign of life. The lawn needed mowing.

She noted several places she could break in, come nightfall, and went back to the hotel to do some electronic snooping.

She found no reference to St. Bartholomew's in any database of religious activity, other than acknowledgment of its existence and location. It was founded the year after the nanoforge cataclysm that formed the Inland Sea.

It was doubtless a cover organization for something, and that something was somehow connected with the military-in Washington, when she'd typed in the name, working under Blaisdell's aegis, she'd gotten a message that need-to-know doc.u.ments would have to be processed through Force Management and Personnel. That was pretty spooky, since Blaisdell had unquestioned access to top-secret material in any part of the military establishment.

So the people in that monastery were either very powerful or very subtle. Maybe both. And Ingram was evidently part of them.

The obvious conclusion would be that they were part of the Hammer of G.o.d. But then Blaisdell would know about their activities.

Or would he? It was a large organization, with linkages so complex and well-protected that it was possible even the man in charge could have lost track of an important part. So she should be ready to go in shooting, but also ready to tiptoe away quietly. G.o.d would guide her.

She spent a couple of hours a.s.sembling an Iridium mosaic of snapshots of the place since the 11th. There were no pictures of the black limousine, which was not too surprising, since the monastery had a large garage and there were never any vehicles parked outside.

Then she saw the army truck and bus appear, and watched them reappear as blue church vehicles, and leave.

It would take a long time, and a lot of luck, to trace them through the Interstate system. Fortunately, the powder blue was an unusual color. But before she settled into that mind-numbing ch.o.r.e, she decided to go check the monastery for clues.

She put on her business suit over the weapons and a.s.sembled the ID package and pocket litter that identified her as an FBI agent from Washington. She wouldn't get past a retinal scan at a police station, but she didn't foresee going into any police station alive.

Again, no response from the doorbell. It took her only a couple of seconds to pick the lock, but it was dead-bolted. She took out the pistol and blew the deadbolt off, and the door swung open.

She hurried in with the gun drawn and shouted F.B.I.! at the dusty waiting room. She went into the main corridor and started a hasty search, hoping to get through and out before the police arrived. She figured, accurately, that it was possible the folks at St. Bart's didn't have a burglar alarm because they didn't want any police showing up suddenly, but she didn't want to count on that.

The rooms off the corridor were disappointing-two meeting rooms and individual dormitory rooms or cells.

The atrium stopped her, though, with the towering trees and active brook. A trash container had six empty Dom Perignon bottles. Off the atrium, a large circular conference room built around a huge hologram plate. She found the controls and turned it on to the peaceful woodland scene.

At first she didn't recognize the electronic modules at each seat-and then it dawned on her that this was a place where two dozen sinners could jack together!

She'd never heard of anything like that outside of the military. Maybe that was the military connection, though: a top-secret soldierboy experiment. The office of Force Management and Personnel might indeed be behind it.

That made her hesitant about proceeding. Blaisdell was her spiritual superior as well as her cell leader, and she would normally follow his orders without question. But it seemed increasingly obvious that there could be aspects to this he was unaware of. She would go back to the hotel and try to set up a secure line to him.

She turned off the hologram and tried to return to the atrium. The door was locked.

The room spoke up: Your presence here is illegal. Is there any way you would care to explain it? The voice was Mendez's; he was viewing her from Guadalajara.

I'm Agent Audrey Simone from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. We have reason to believe- Do you have a warrant to search this establishment?

It's on file with the local authorities.

You forgot to bring a copy when you broke in, though.

I don't have to explain myself to you. Show yourself. Open this door.

No, I think you'd better tell me the name of your supervisor and the location of your branch. Once I verify that you are who you say you are, we can discuss your lack of a warrant.

With her left hand she pulled out her wallet and turned in a circle, displaying the badge. Things will go a lot easier for you if- She was interrupted by the invisible man's laugh.

Put the fake badge away and shoot your way out. The police should have arrived by now; you can explain about your warrant to them.

She had to shoot off both hinges as well as the three bolts on this door. She ran across the brook and found that the door out of the atrium was now similarly secured. She reloaded, automatically counting the number of remaining air cartridges, and tried to open this one with three shots. It took her four more.

I WAS WATCHING HER on the screen from behind Mendez. She was finally able to push the door down with her shoulder. He pushed two b.u.t.tons and switched to the corridor camera. She went pounding down the corridor in a dead run, the pistol held out in front of her with both hands.

Does that look like an FBI agent going out to reason with the local cops?

Maybe you should have actually called them.

He shook his head. Unnecessary bloodshed. You didn't recognize her?

Afraid not. Mendez had called me when she shot down the front door, on the off chance that I might recognize her from Portobello.

Before she went out the front door, she slipped the pistol into a belly holster, and b.u.t.toned just the top b.u.t.ton of her suit, so it was like a cape, concealing without restraining. Then she walked casually out the door.

Pretty smooth, I said. She might not be official. She could have been hired by anyone.

Or she could be a Hammer of G.o.d nutcase. They had Blaze tracked as far as the train station in Omaha. He switched to an outside camera.

Ingram had a lot of government authority, as well as being a nut. I guess she might, too.

I was sure the government lost her in Omaha. If anyone had followed the limo, St. Bart's would have had company long before now.

She stepped out and looked around, her face revealing nothing, and started up the sidewalk toward town like a tourist on a morning const.i.tutional, neither slow nor hurried. The camera had a wide-angle lens; she dwindled away pretty fast.

So should we check the hotels and try to find out who she is? I asked.

Maybe not. Even if we got a name, it might not do us any good. And we don't want anyone to make a connection between St. Bart's and Guadalajara.

I gestured at the screen. No one can track that signal to here?

Not the pictures. It's an Iridium service. I decrypt them pa.s.sively from anywhere in the world. He turned off the screen. You going to the unveiling? Today was the day Jefferson and Ingram were to have finished the humanization process.

Blaze wondered whether I ought to. My feelings about Ingram are still pretty Neanderthal.

I can't imagine. He only tried to murder your woman and then you as well.

Not to mention insulting my manhood and attempting to destroy the universe. But I'm due in the Clinic this afternoon anyhow, to get my memory f.u.c.ked with. Might as well see Wonder Boy in action.

Give me a report. I'm going to stay by the screen for the next day or two, in case 'Agent Simone' tries another visit.

Of course I wouldn't be able to give him a report, because the encounter with Ingram was related to all the stuff I was having erased, or at least so I a.s.sumed-I wouldn't be able to remember his a.s.sault on Amelia without recalling what she had done to attract his attention. Good luck. You might check with Marty-his general might have some way to access FBI personnel records.

Good idea. He stood up. Cup of coffee? No, thanks. Spend the rest of the morning with Blaze. We don't know who I'm going to be tomorrow.

Frightening prospect. But Marty swears it's totally reversible.

That's true. But Marty was going ahead with the plan even though it meant the risk of a billion or more dying or losing their sanity. Maybe my losing or keeping my memories didn't rank too high on his list of priorities.

THE WOMAN WHO CALLED herself Audrey Simone, whose cell name was Gavrila, would never go back to the monastery. She had learned enough there.

It took her more than a day to put together a mosaic of Indium pictures of the two blue vehicles making their way from North Dakota to Guadalajara. By G.o.d's grace the last picture was perfect timing: the truck had disappeared and the bus was signaling for a left turn into an underground parking garage. She used a grid to find the address and was not surprised when it turned out to be a clinic for installing jacks. That G.o.dless practice was at the heart of everything, obviously.

General Blaisdell arranged transportation to Guadalajara for her, but she had to wait six hours for an express package to arrive. There was no sporting goods store in North Dakota where she could replace the ammunition she'd used up opening doors-Magnum-load dum-dum bullets that wouldn't set off airport detectors. She didn't want to run out of them, if she had to fight her way to the redheaded scientist. And perhaps Ingram.

INGRAM AND JEFFERSON SAT together in hospital blues. They were in straight-backed chairs of expensive teak or mahogany. I didn't notice the unusual wood first, though. I noticed that Jefferson sat with a serene, relaxed expression that reminded me of the Twenty, Ingram's expression was literally unreadable, and both of his wrists were handcuffed to the chair arms.

There was a semicircle of twenty chairs facing them in the featureless white round room. It was an operating theater, with glowing walls for the display of X-ray or positron transparencies.

Amelia and I took the last empty chairs. What's with Ingram? I said. It didn't take?

He just shut down, Jefferson said. When he realized he couldn't resist the process, he went into a kind of catatonia. He didn't come out of it when we unjacked him.

Maybe he's bluffing, Amelia said, probably remembering the conference room at St. Bart's. Waiting for an opportunity to strike.

That's why he's handcuffed, Marty said. He's a wild card now.

He's just not there, Jefferson said. I've jacked with more people than everybody in this room put together, and nothing like this has ever happened. You can't unjack yourself mentally, but that's what it felt like. Like he decided to pull the plug.

Not exactly a selling point for humanization, I said to Marty. It works on everyone but psychopaths?

That's the word they used to describe me, Ellie said, saintly and serene. And it was accurate. She had murdered her husband and children, with gasoline. But the process worked with me, and still works after all these years. Without it, I know I would have gone crazy; stayed crazy.

The term 'psychopath' covers a lot of territory. Jefferson said. Ingram is intensely moral, even though he's repeatedly done things that all of us would call immoral; outrageously so.

When I was jacked with him, I said, he reacted to my outrage with a kind of imperturbable condescension. I was a hopeless case who couldn't understand the rightness of the things he had done. That was the first day.

We wore him down a little over the next couple of days, Jefferson said. By not disapproving; by trying to understand.

How can you 'understand' someone who can follow an order to rape a woman and then mutilate her in a specific way? He left her tied up and gagged, to bleed to death. He's not even human.

But he is human, Jefferson said, and however bizarre his behavior is, it's still human behavior. I think that's what shut him down-we refused to see him as some sort of avenging angel. Just a profoundly sick man we were trying to help. He could take your condemnation and laugh at it. He couldn't take Elbe's Christian charity and loving kindness. Or, for that matter, my own professional detachment.

He should be dead by now, Dr. Orr said. He hasn't taken any food or water since the third day. We've kept him on IVs.

A waste of glucose, I said.

You know better. Marty waved fingers in front of Ingram's face and he didn't blink. We have to find out why this happened, and how common it's going to be.

Not common, Mendez said. I was with him before, during, and after his retreat into wherever he is now. From the first, it was like jacking with some kind of alien, or animal.

I'll go along with that, I said.

But nevertheless very a.n.a.lytical, Jefferson said. Studying us intently from the very first.

Studying what we knew about jacking, Ellie said. He wasn't that interested in anybody as a person. But he had only jacked before in a limited, commercial way, and he was hungry to absorb our experience.

Jefferson nodded. "He had this vivid fantasy that he extrapolated from the jack joints. He wanted to be jacked with someone and kill him.

Or her, Amelia said, like me, or that poor woman he raped and cut up.

The fantasy was always a male, Ellie said. He doesn't see women as worthy opponents. And he doesn't have much of a s.e.x drive-when he raped that woman, his p.e.n.i.s was just another weapon.

An extension of his self, like all of his weapons, Jefferson said. He's more obsessive about weapons than any soldier I ever jacked with.

He missed his calling. I know some guys he'd get along with fine.

I don't doubt it, Marty said. Which makes him that much more important to study. Some people in hunter-killer platoons have similar personality traits. We have to find a way to keep this from happening.

Good riddance, I didn't say. So you won't be coming with me tomorrow? Stay here?

No, I'm still going to Portobello. Dr. Jefferson's going to work on Ingram. See whether he can walk him back with a combination of drugs and therapy.

I don't know whether to wish you luck. I really prefer him this way. Maybe it was just my imagination, but I thought the b.a.s.t.a.r.d showed a glimmer of expression at that. Maybe we should send Marty down to Portobello alone, and leave me up here to taunt him out of catatonia.

JULIAN AND MARTY MISSED by only a few minutes sharing the Guadalajara airport with the woman who had come down to kill Amelia. They got on a military flight to Portobello while she took a taxi from the airport to the hotel across the street from the Clinic. Jefferson was staying there, no coincidence, and so were two of the Twenty-Ellie and the old soldier Cameron.

Jefferson and Cameron were dawdling over breakfast in the hotel cantina when she walked in to get a cup of coffee to take back to her room.

They both looked at her automatically, as men will when a beautiful woman makes an entrance, but Cameron kept staring.

Jefferson laughed and put on the accent of a popular comedian. Jim ... you don't stop puttin' eye tracks on her, she's gonna come over and smack you one. The two men had become friends, having worked their way up from the same beginning, the lower-cla.s.s black suburbs of Los Angeles.

He turned around with a careful expression and said quietly, Zam, she might more'n smack me. Kill me just for practice.