It was true what they said: Life was like high school--only bigger.

He came to the long straight stretch, a little over half a mile before it curved again, and he upshifted into top gear. He pushed and pulled hard on the pedals, the toe-clips allowing him to apply pressure in both directions. It didn't take but a couple hundred feet for his legs to get really warm, and halfway through the strip, his thighs and ham-strings started to burn really hot. He checked the speedometer. Thirty-three. Not bad. He had the windshield mounted, but without the full faring installed, the drag wouldn't let him get much faster sitting upright with just a little backward lean.

He pa.s.sed another rider on a two-wheeler, cruising along at a steady, but slower, speed. The rider wore purple and yellow gear, and the bike was one of those carbon-frame Swiss jobs that easily cost twice what his trike did. He waved at Michaels as he blew past. Probably going to crank out forty or fifty miles, and save the sprint until the end. And even after that distance, Michaels knew he wouldn't be able to stay with him if the guy was a serious serious biker. Those guys were all crazy. biker. Those guys were all crazy.

The burn increased, but he kept pumping, holding on. When he had about a hundred and fifty yards before the curve, Michaels allowed himself to coast. He slowed, added a little brake and made it through the curve. Not much bank there--too bad. A couple more degrees and he could have taken it at speed, but he guessed the designers didn't want walkers or joggers sliding down the side of a hill if the path got wet. It did rain here from time to time.

It felt good to get out, to do something physical. He resolved to do it more often.

Tuesday, September 21st, 12:09 p.m. Quantico The Selkie slowed her run to a walk as soon as the target was out of sight on his big trike. He had seen her, of course, and given that he was a normal heteros.e.xual male, he would have noticed her in the tight red shorts she wore. She was in excellent shape, and although running was not her preferred method of keeping that way, she could go a few miles without collapsing when it was necessary.

That the target had seen her and very likely stared at her a.s.s didn't mean anything. He would not see her in these clothes again.

She could have killed him when he went past. Could have easily pulled the snub-nose .38 S&W revolver from the f.a.n.n.y pack she wore and put all five rounds the little gun carried into the target's back as he sailed past oblivious. Knocked him off his tricycle, reloaded, calmly walked to where he lay and put a couple more in the head. Even if somebody had been there to see--and no one had been--it was unlikely anybody would have been able to stop her. She was adept with the Smith, could manage NRA Expert with it, or keep up with the IPSC action shooters and their tricked-out pistols in their combat scenarios, despite the short barrel and lousy sights. It was one of the tools of her trade, and she was the best there was at that business.

But such killings were . . . inelegant. Anybody could point a gun and blast away, and for an adept, there was no joy to be found in such a simple method. Of course, the needs of the client had to come first. Some of them wanted it known that the target had been killed. They wanted it done b.l.o.o.d.y. And some of them even wanted souvenirs--a finger, an ear--or some normally less-visible appendage. She didn't torture and she didn't take hurry-up contracts, but if the client wanted anatomical proof the target was gone, she would supply it. Those who asked for such things didn't usually offer her much repeat business. Clients who wanted body parts to put in a jar tended to p.i.s.s people off and get into fatal trouble of their own.

She nodded at a jogger coming from the other direction, but didn't make eye contact.

Good a.s.sa.s.sins deleted their targets and got away.

The best a.s.sa.s.sins could delete their targets and arrange it so n.o.body even suspected there had been been a murder. That was much more satisfying. She hadn't been given instructions about the manner of this target's death, and she was toying with the idea of making it look like natural causes, or maybe suicide. She was in control, it was her choice. a murder. That was much more satisfying. She hadn't been given instructions about the manner of this target's death, and she was toying with the idea of making it look like natural causes, or maybe suicide. She was in control, it was her choice.

Always.

Wednesday, September 22nd, 9 a.m. Washington, D.C.

The buzzer sounded and Tyrone Howard joined the exodus of students from first-period cla.s.s into the dingy green halls of Eisenhower Middle School. Ahead of him, he saw Sean Hughes lumber into a guy from behind and shoulder him aside. The guy slammed into the lockers, hard. He recovered, turned, started to say something--then saw who had hit him and changed his mind.

This was a real good idea.

Tyrone slowed, to avoid getting too close. Hughes was an ox, pushing six feet tall and two hundred pounds, and at fifteen was two years older than most of his grade cla.s.s. Hughes was a flicker screen who had flunked at least twice, not including summer school and private net teachers, and he got his kicks by bullying anybody who had more brains than he did--which was everybody in the school except MCMs--mentally challenged mainstreamers. And maybe a few of them were smarter, too. They had a name for Hughes, though n.o.body ever said it to his face.

"Essay is on a roll today, ain't he?"

Tyrone looked to his left and saw James Joseph Hatfield grinning at him.

"Essay" came from the initials S and A. Which came from "Sore a.s.s," which came from "Brontosaurus," which was what the computer set called Sean Hughes. Tyrone didn't know who had come up with the original nickname, but it was dead on. The guy had all the wit and grace of a big dino tanked on sleeping pills.

Jimmy Joe was a hillbilly from West Virginia, small, so white he was bright, with eyes so bad he had to wear thick gla.s.ses instead of contacts. He was also one of the best netriders in the whole school, and he held the record for completing the first ten levels of Black Mysts of Total Catastrophe fastest, not just in the school but anywhere. And he was Tyrone's best friend.

"Hey, Jimmy Joe. How's the flow?"

"Dee eff eff, Tyrone." This stood for DFF--data flowin' fine.

"Listen, I talked to Jay Gee. He needs our help."

"Jay Gee needs our our help? Praw that." help? Praw that."

"Nopraw," Tyrone said. "Somebody is poppin' strands."

"Tell me somethin' I don't compro, bro. Somebody is always always poppin' strands." poppin' strands."

"Yeah, affirm, but this is different. There's a C-1 grammer looking to ra.s.s the whole web."

"Nofeek?"

"Nofeek."

Jimmy Joe shook his head. "Eyes up, rider. If Jay Gee can't grope him, how are we gonna do it?"

He had a point. Jay Gridley's reputation among the set was large.

"We got links he doesn't scan," Tyrone said. "We can backline, OHT, little feek like that."

"Yeah, yeah, nopraw pross that. I can blip the aolers. Induct-deduct fine lines, do the One Horse Towns. Build a scoop. We could seine minnows. I know a couple of hangers in CyberNation, they got some pretty good nets there. You think about joining? CyberNation, I mean."

"I think about what my dad would say if I tried," Tyrone said.

"I copy that. My old man would blow a major fuse, but it looks like the place to live. Then again, this is too warm, slip. Us, riding with Jay Gee."

"Yeah--"

Tyrone ran into a wall. Only it wasn't really a wall, it was Essay.

"Watch it, t.i.ts!"

Tyrone backed up two steps fast. He hadn't been paying attention. Essay must have forgotten where he was going and stopped to puzzle it out. Stupid. But maybe not as stupid as walking right into his back!

"Sorry!" Tyrone said.

"Yeah, you gonna be," Essay began. "I'm gonna mush you--!"

But before he could finish the threat, Belladonna Wright walked past, trailing the scent of some musky, s.e.xy perfume.

Essay shifted his thinking from his big stupid head to his small stupid head. He turned to watch Bella--as did Tyrone--and she was something to see in her green microskirt and halter top, walking high on her cork slope-plats. A grade up and the best-looking girl in D.C. easy. Essay had as much chance getting next to her as he did flying to the moon by waving his big old arms, but that didn't stop him from looking--though that was all he would do. Bella was currently hardlinked with Herbie "Bonebreaker" LeMott, the captain of the Epitome High School wrestling team. He was a senior, and he he made Essay look little. When Theo Hatcher had sneaked up behind Bella once and "accidentally" put his hand on her b.u.t.t, Theo had spent six weeks with his arm in a blue fibergla.s.s cast for his trouble, courtesy of LeMott. Bella could have any guy in school broken in half with two words into Bonebreaker's ear, and even Essay knew that. made Essay look little. When Theo Hatcher had sneaked up behind Bella once and "accidentally" put his hand on her b.u.t.t, Theo had spent six weeks with his arm in a blue fibergla.s.s cast for his trouble, courtesy of LeMott. Bella could have any guy in school broken in half with two words into Bonebreaker's ear, and even Essay knew that.

Jimmy Joe grabbed one of Tyrone's arms and steered him back the way they came. "Ride, rider, ride! Time his brain clicks back on-line, we need to be scanning elsewhere elsewhere !" !"

Tyrone understood--he definitely prossed that, that, nopraw at all. On some level, though, he was really p.i.s.sed off. He wasn't ready to die, but sooner or later, he was going to have to do something about Essay. nopraw at all. On some level, though, he was really p.i.s.sed off. He wasn't ready to die, but sooner or later, he was going to have to do something about Essay.

What to do and to do and how how to do it--well, those were the problems. to do it--well, those were the problems.

Wednesday, September 22nd, 6 a.m. San Diego Ruzhyo did not much care for television, though he sometimes watched the international news to see what mention there was of his homeland. CNN droned in the background as he fixed coffee in the small pot provided by the hotel. The coffee was prepackaged and stale, but it was better than nothing.

It had been yet another bad night for dreams. After managing to get back to sleep for an hour or two, he came awake and knew it was pointless to try again. He had known a man in the army once who, it was said, could sleep while eating a bowl of hot soup. Ruzhyo was not that good, but he had learned to survive on a minimum amount of rest when he had been a soldier, catching naps when he could; two hours was enough to fuel a day.

He took his coffee and went back to stare at the television.

In Idaho, some cult had gone into a barn and set it on fire, to free themselves from the flesh to join their G.o.d. Ruzhyo did not know how free they were, but the flesh was certainly well-done, to judge from the pictures.

In France, student demonstrators had attacked a police line outside a hotel where the French President was scheduled to speak. Nine of the demonstrators had been hospitalized with wounds from rubber bullets; two others had died from the same cause.

In India, a flood drowned two hundred people, uncounted sacred cows, and washed away several villages.

In j.a.pan, an earthquake on the island of Kyushu had killed eighty-nine people in collapsing buildings and done major damage to the city of Kagoshima. During the quake, the new bullet train that spanned the island had also crashed when the ground in front of it dropped twenty feet, killing sixty and injuring more than three hundred.

Of Chechnya, CNN had nothing to say.

Ruzhyo sipped his bad coffee and shook his head. Just as well that there was no news of home, given how dreary it all seemed. The world was a dangerous place, full of misery. All over it, people would be lamenting the loss of loved ones this day, family or friends taken by accidents or illness or murder. During those few times when he had felt qualms about the work he did, all he had ever needed to do was watch the television, or read the newspapers, or just talk to someone. Life was full of woe. He was no more than a drop in a sea of misery. If he took a man out, what did it matter? If not him, something or somebody else would. In the end, it did not matter all that much, did it?

His com unit cheeped. He sipped the coffee and stared at the com. No, it did not matter. And just as well--more wetwork was surely about to be forthcoming.

Wednesday, September 22nd, 4:45 p.m. Washington, D.C.

Naked, save for a sweatband around her head, the Selkie sat at the small kitchen table and examined her cane.

She checked the wood for nicks and gouges. Every couple of months, she would take fine sandpaper and Watco satin-finish oil to the cane, to smooth and polish the already smooth hickory. It was hardwood, but it scratched easily, and she liked to have it gleaming. The manufacturer recommended mineral oil, but Watco gave a tougher finish. Smelled better, too.

It was a couple hours work to do it right, the sanding and finishing, but one of the first things she'd learned from her father was to take care of her tools so they wouldn't fail her when she needed them. The guys who made the wooden weapons did excellent work. She owned five of their canes in three different styles, as well as two sets of escrima escrima sticks, and a custom-made pair of six-inch sticks, and a custom-made pair of six-inch yawaras yawaras . .

The cane she preferred for work in places where she did not carry a gun was the Custom Combat model. It was hickory, thirty-seven inches long, blond in color, with a round shaft a little over an inch in diameter; it had a large crook tipped by a flamingo-beak design. Hickory was best for the street, heavier than the walnut tournament models, more st.u.r.dy than the oak. The end of the curved hook--called the horn--was sharp and wicked enough to do some real damage. The ground end of the shaft was a dull and rounded point, innocuous-looking, and with the rubber tip in place, perfectly usable as a support cane. There was a series of decorative notches carved into the shaft just below the crook, designed to serve as a handgrip.

That cane was at home. The one she inspected at the moment, the Instructor's model, was almost identical to the Combat style, same length and diameter, but the crook was a hair wider and the horn was rounded instead of beaked. It looked a lot more like the cane an old lady should be using to hobble about with. It wouldn't do for some eagle-eyed cop to see that pointed horn and think: Why, Granny, what a sharp stick you have. . . . Why, Granny, what a sharp stick you have. . . .

The weapon looked okay, so the Selkie left the kitchen and padded naked into the living room of her rental condo where she had set up her practice target. This was a section of an inch-and-a-half-diameter aluminum rod with a ring-bolt on one end. The rod was wrapped in a pad of biogel, the same stuff they used to soften racing bike seats and the insteps of running shoes; the gel was then covered with a stretched sheet of chamois leather and held tightly in place with duct tape. It wasn't exactly the same as flesh over bone, but it was close enough for her purposes. At home, she had a wing chun wing chun training dummy set up with similar wrapping, so she could work the full range of angles, with weapons or feet and hands, but on the road, one had to make do. training dummy set up with similar wrapping, so she could work the full range of angles, with weapons or feet and hands, but on the road, one had to make do.

She got a sudden mental image of herself trying to check a wing chun wing chun dummy in at an airport with her luggage, with the reaction that would bring, and grinned. dummy in at an airport with her luggage, with the reaction that would bring, and grinned.

A thin nylon rope ran from the target's eyebolt through a second eye hook she'd screwed into a ceiling rafter; the other end of the line was tied to a doork.n.o.b. This way, she could adjust the target's height. Right now, it was at knee level. Knees were great targets for a stick--a broken knee put a big crimp in anybody's fighting style.

She moved within range of the target, took a couple of cleansing breaths and a.s.sumed her basic stance, cane in front of her, tip on the ground, both hands on the crook. She was aware she would look very interesting to a watcher were not all the curtains pulled closed: a naked woman standing with a cane in front of her crotch in the middle of a room empty except for something weird hanging from the ceiling. She grinned. She'd always liked working out nude, there was something so primal about it.

She cleared her mind. Wait. Wait . . .

She whipped the cane up from the floor in a short arc from her right, slid her right hand to mid-shaft to guide the strike, her left hand to the carved grip to power it.

The solid thunk! thunk! of the wood into the padded bar felt very satisfying. A good hit. of the wood into the padded bar felt very satisfying. A good hit.

She spun the cane, caught the target in the crook, pulled it toward herself, then pivoted the stick and hit the padding from the opposite side.

One more solid hit and the target stopped cold, no swing.

Yes!

She pulled the cane back, held it like a pool cue and thrust the tip forward. Hit the target high, knocked it back.

Yes.

It was just practice, but even so, the Selkie was in the zone--she was in the killing killing zone. And there was no place more exciting. zone. And there was no place more exciting.

Monday, September 27th, 3 p.m. Maintenon, France Plekhanov sat in an old stone bell tower, a long-barreled Mauser Gewehr Model 1898 rifle balanced across his knees. The piece weighed about four and half kilos, was intrinsically accurate, fired the 7.92mm cartridge at high velocity, and had an appropriate-period M73B1 telescopic sight mounted upon it. Even though the scope was American-made, used primarily on the Springfield 1903, some of the optics had found their way into Germany. This was somewhat ironic, given the uses to which they had been put. The long bolt made the rifle's action slow to operate, and it held only five rounds in the box magazine, but the range would be enough to allow plenty of time to escape despite the sluggish operational speed.

The church steeple was the tallest point in the picturesque and nameless little village southwest of Maintenon, and offered a good view of the approaching armies. The AEF--American Expeditionary Force--had come late to the Great War, but they were here now, and would help turn the tide. Recent storms in the region had been torrential, and it was one of their brigades now slogging its way across the muddy fields even as Plekhanov watched.

Along with the Americans was a polyglot combined-unit comprised of Russian, Serbian, Chechen, Korean, j.a.panese, Thai, Chinese and Indian soldiers.

Plekhanov removed the clunky helmet he wore and ran one hand through his sweat-damp hair. He grinned. Historical accuracy fell down a bit in this scenario, since no Oriental countries had fielded soldiers in this area during World War I, even though j.a.pan and China had been considered allies of the western Europeans battling Germany. Certainly there had been no Koreans or Thais--still called Siamese back then--nor Indians, unless perhaps the Brits had sprinkled a few Gurkhas or Bengal Lancers in among their troops. The British were odd ducks, so he supposed that might well have been possible. Plekhanov's research was not as thorough as it might have been, since it wasn't really necessary. While writing the software, he did recall reading a piece about how outraged the Brits had been when the nabob of Bengal, one Suraj-ud-Dowlah, sacked Calcutta in 1757. After the battle, the nabob had stuffed 146 captured Brits into a small and very hot room at Fort William. When they were released the next day, only twenty-three of them were still alive; the rest had died, most of them from heat stroke. Thus was born the infamous "Black Hole of Calcutta."

Careful there, old man, you are drifting. Best you get back to the business at hand.

Plekhanov put his helmet back on, shifted his position from where he sat upon the empty wine cask and propped the rifle onto the ledge under the tower's opening. He could have used the hiking scenario, but since he was taking direct action himself--there was n.o.body he could trust to do this particular job--he thought a more active imagery was appropriate. A German sniper picking off enemy troops at long range seemed eminently suitable. Poetic, even.

He chambered a round, and lined the scope up on a rather fat American officer who looked like a caricature of a Wall Street stockbroker, despite the military uniform. Even with the optics, the target was still somewhat small at the distance--nearly two hundred meters, he judged. The scope was zeroed in at one hundred meters, so he aimed a bit high, for the head, to allow for a little extra drop. He took a deep breath, held it, squeezed the trigger. . . .

In New York City, a currency tasking computer subcontracted to the Federal Reserve sent copies of all user ID codes admitted to every connected terminal--

Even as the fat American collapsed with a bullet buried in his chest, Plekhanov worked the bolt and shifted his aim.

Ah. There was the White Russian, saber in hand, leading his men. Plekhanov put the crosshairs on the man's throat, held his breath again, fired--

In Moscow, the computer interlink responsible for balance-of-trade statistics with the European Commonwealth scrambled and went down--