"You fucker." Vance pulled himself up off the floor, muttering.

"Problem?" The intruder glanced at him.

"One small one, yeah. You damned near broke my jaw."

"This is the theater of the real, my friend," Alex Novosty laughed as he pulled off the ski mask. "If you're going to be kidnapped, it has to look authentic. I'm a professional. I never do these things by halves."

"Any problem downstairs?" Eva was already collecting her scant belongings.

"Yes, one very big problem. I had a small misunderstanding with one of the hotel's security people. The natives here are not friendly. He's on the service elevator now, sound asleep like this one."

"Where did you park it?" She opened the room door and looked up and down the hall.

"It should still be on this floor. I put it on Emergency Stop. But he's going to wake up any time now and sound the alarm."

"Then we've got to finish here and get out fast." She slammed the door and turned back.

They went to work, quickly turning over chairs, ripping curtains, leaving evidence of a violent struggle. Belongings were strewn across the bed and floor, as though there'd been a hasty search. It was done quietly and efficiently and took about a minute. Novosty thoughtfully positioned his black ski mask in the middle of the floor, just one more clue in what they hoped would be signs of an abrupt, forced departure.

Then they grabbed what they needed, including the

Zenith Turbo, locked the door, and made their way down the hallway. The Strand Palace security guard was still on the service elevator, unconscious but beginning to stir.

"What do you propose we do with him?" Novosty gave the Irishman a shake.

"How about a little more ether," Eva suggested. She was clasping the Zenith next to her. "And then let's get out of here."

He obligingly gave the man a final dose from the almost- empty bottle, leaving the rag across his face. By the time he finished, the elevator had reached the service area in the basement. Their Soviet limousine was parked in the alley, ready. In seconds they were in it and gone.

Tuesday 10:43 P.M.

Michael Vance, Eva Borodin, and Aleksei Novosty were luckier than they knew. When they emerged, the Japanese guard Jiro Sato had stationed at the Burleigh entrance had momentarily been called away by radio to confer at the Strand corner. Since the alleyway was curved slightly, as London alleys invariably are, the huddled Yakuza team saw nothing but the tinted windows of a limousine with diplomatic license plates speeding past. They paid it no heed.

Watches were checked one more time, and then the dark-suited men fanned out. The guard stationed down Burleigh returned to his post, while the five who had been in the Docklands office made their way into the teeming lobby on the Strand. While two started up the fire stairs, the other three converged on the KGB guard, disarmed him discreetly, and then informed him that he had pressing business outside. He was shoved into one of the waiting Fords, gagged, and handcuffed to the steering column. It took less than a minute to neutralize him.

Then the three returned to the lobby and got on the elevator. On the eighth floor they met the other two, who had come in from the stairway at the opposite end of the hall. Together they swept the corridors.

The KGB guard was nowhere to be seen.

"Perhaps they pulled the security on this floor," one of them said.

"Or he has gone into the room, to piss out some vodka," another suggested.

"This will be easier than we thought," a third was heard to observe.

Together they converged on the room registered in the name of Michael Vance, and then they stood aside as one knocked.

When there was no answer, they elected to shoulder it in.

As they rushed the room, they were met by a fusillade of automatic pistol fire from a boiling mad KGB security agent, nursing a headache and crouched just inside the bathroom door.