Canvas winced, surprising the man who considered him unflappable. "My end is the most screwed of all. No time to train proper, no physical simuls, barely time to get my facilitators in place."

"Then, what will you do?"

Canvas looked out at the water as they talked, longing to be in the South Pacific, on the island for which he was meeting with a broker that afternoon to make the first payment.

"Canvas?"

He turned back to the German. "I've walked the box four times. Given videos and stills from all nests to each of my people. And I've given instructions to my primary that if the target is still intact after the nests speak, then he's to use his RPG to settle the matter properlike." He smiled. "Made in Taiwan, if you're interested."

The German nodded sagely. "And if that fails?"

Canvas smiled spasmodically; a sickly, convulsive thing. "Then we have the team at the hospital-either in initial treatment or during recovery."

"And if the worst happens, if the target is completely intact when he leaves your box."

The German had been handpicked by General Xi for his coloration, true enough; but more important, for his thoroughness and eye for detail. "If there is no need for the hospital or they go to a different hospital? What then?"

The a.s.sa.s.sin/planner slowly shook his head. "No chance of that, is there? Not with my boys in the nests. At worst, the target comes out wounded and we get him at our hospital."

"Still," the German pressed, knowing that Xi would ask the question later, when he reported by satellite burst transmission.

"Well," the bigger man said pleasantly, "I imagine you'll have me killed then, won't you? Or will it just be a refund with penalty?"

"And if you were in our position?"

Canvas nodded. "Of course."

They started back for the boat.

"I still am not completely comfortable with all these faces knowing each other," the German said, looking over at the group that was talking among themselves. "After, uh, zero, pressures could be brought to bear."

"I know." He exhaled deeply as he thought of himself swimming naked in his private lagoon. "Been taken care of already." He stopped a little way off from the group. "I've got a question for you." He looked deeply into the German's eyes. "Can you do this thing you have to?"

The German nodded solemnly. "As with the others," it would've been nicer, certainly more convenient, if I had another six months, or even a year. But... He looked into the woods behind the beach. "This is the fruition of thirty-one years work. I have been in place-waiting-for the last seven of them. If I cannot do it now, I could not do it better fourteen months from now."

Canvas looked at the committed man, thought about the fanged demons that drove him, the long-bred discipline of his people, his culture. His sellout/buy-in with the Chinese. A merging of their ideology with the man's lack of any true belief.

Then he laughed.

Because with all of that, they'd still had to come to him when their geometric logic had threatened to come crashing down around them.

"Your daddy really a n.a.z.i?"

The German shrugged. "Not in a noticeably provable way. But what if he was?" The man seemed relaxed for the first time. "In this country, every man is judged as himself; not as his father's son."

"G.o.d bless America, Canvas said affably to the German's discomfort."

Ten minutes later he watched them reboard the small boat. Standing on the beach-watching silently, thought-fully-until they disappeared around the point for the covert rendezvous. Knowing that-other than the German-he would never see any of them alive again.

"I will miss Lissy, though," he mumbled as he turned and started back.

Clearing his mind of everything but squirrels, vulnerabilities, and Pacific islands for the rest of the afternoon.

3 Hours 40 Minutes to Zero

Washington, D.C.

"Where are we supposed to be, Michael?" DeWitt asked as he straightened his tie.

"Car's waiting, sir." The personal aide had already made his-as usual-thorough preparations. "Twenty-minute drive, then the seminar, then brunch with selected members of the host committee."

The attorney general nodded. "Right." He exhaled a deep, cleansing breath. "Any updates?"

"No, sir. Not on anything."

DeWitt nodded. "Okay." He started to pour himself his second vodka of the early morning.

"Uh, sir. Maybe not today?" Michael braced for an outburst.

Instead, the man looked down at his hand on the bottle, then slowly drew it away. "You're right."

Thirty minutes later, joined by an equally tense Buckley and Kingston, DeWitt took his place on the dais.

"Good morning," the youngish moderator said pleasantly. "And welcome to our third in a series of meetings with"-a dramatic pause-"our leaders of tomorrow. Our guests today are Attorney General Jefferson DeWitt; the junior senator from Colorado, Rod Buckley; and the director of the Peace Corps and former counsel to the president, Lane Kingston."

After the applause the man sat down. "Before we begin the questioning, we'll hear briefly from each of our guests. Director Kingston?"

Kingston smiled. "I'm very pleased to be here today, Carl. My job is directly linked to the topic of these meetings... addressing the future of the world. A thought never far from my mind. Because it is the next generation that will lead us through the early days of the new millennium. And it is the youth of the world-which I hope I'm not too far removed from"-light laughter from the crowd-"that we must turn to for new ideas, new appeals, new ways of looking at things in order for us to move forward into the new, American century."

Enthusiastic applause, as the moderator turned to Buckley.

"Well," the senator said as he checked a note from his aide, "leadership is what this is all about. Isn't it? But the form of that leadership is what concerns me. Will the next wave or whatever you call them merely be parrots of the old strictures and tired concepts, or will they be able to see things with new eyes? Young, fresh eyes, which will recognize that in our uncertain future old enemies might become our friends, and old friends might well become enemies."

Sage nods from around the room. "Personally I hope for a new generation of leadership that is both flexible and thoughtful. A generation that will lead America forward, and not remain too trapped in the past."

"Mr. Attorney General, the moderator said, nodding to DeWitt."

DeWitt grinned. "Sounds like a presidential debate to me."

The moderator smiled. "Perhaps in a couple of years. The crowd laughed, along with the panelists."

"G.o.d help us all." DeWitt smiled back. "What do I see for the leaders of tomorrow?" He seemed to think the question over. "New ideas? Sure. Flexibility? Absolutely."

He suddenly grew deeply introspective. "But what strikes me is that we've heard the same thing for each of the political generations that has come before us. And the more they call for change, the more things seem to stay the same."

He sighed deeply. "What I would like to see, what I pray to see, is far simpler than all the lofty declarations of all who have come before us."

"The challenge to the next generation of leaders must be to create an America where no child goes to bed hungry or illiterate or abandoned at night. Where no man or woman loses self-respect through work that demeans and doesn't provide a basic living wage; or through the plague of racism. Where every American's basic dignity is not only protected by their government but embraced and worshiped by it as well."

Loud applause and the slightest mocking applause from Kingston and Buckley beside him.

Buckley leaned over and whispered to DeWitt, "Nice speech. You write it or did Michael?"

"Jealous?"

Buckley shrugged. "Just thought I might steal the one person in your office who knows what he's doing."

"Cynic," DeWitt said out of the corner of his mouth. "Michael and I are the same person."

And the questioning began.

2 Hours 25 Minutes to Zero

The Safe House

Canvas sat in a fully extended recliner, feet up, head back, eyes closed. A cup of coffee sat ignored on a table next to him. Maps of The Box on the walls in front of him, charts, tables of organization, the nuts and bolts of an elaborate plot laid out within easy reach.

But he didn't need any of it. In his mind he was already in the kill box; moving with the growing crowds, examining, accepting, rejecting, adjusting things until they fit the pattern he'd designed.

The operation had been forced to become fluid, not planned so much as felt, so his instructions to his teams had been general at best, mirroring his relaxed, "go with the flow" state of mind in the chair.

"You all know your nests, but we're not married to them," he'd said at the final briefing the night before. "You want to move, do it. Just make sure your facilitators know where you've gotten."

"And all of that goes for post-zero as well, right? We all know what we want to do, what we planned to do, but after zero use your own best judgment. Instinct says 'split, you just split! Call in at the approved times to let us know you haven't run off with the family silver.'"

Then his voice had grown solemn, quiet, concerned.

"Don't none of us like this cowboy nonsense, but there's where we sit, lads. In it up to our exposed throats, we are. So make sure you get your shots off, as many as you can without putting yourself at maximum risk. Then get the bleeding h.e.l.l out of there! And if you have to drop Mr. or Mrs. Nosy Pants to get it done or on the way out, then you drop 'em, mates."

He'd smiled easily then, as he'd handed out the small five-round clips he'd personally loaded with rounds he'd personally manufactured.

"Can't afford any more insurance payments on this here thing, can I?"

But that was hours ago. And although he'd heard nothing since they'd wordlessly left, he knew the teams and their facilitators were in position, waiting.

Ready.

Just as he now knew it was time to check that knowledge.

He picked up the microphone from the Handie-Talkie on the table next to him, sighed, then pressed the call key.

"Zhe sh qe jinan de lie-che ma?" he said firmly into the radio.

A long, static-filled silence.

"Yi." A voice cut through the white noise.

"Ling."

"er."

"San."

"S."

"Wu."

"Lie."

The primary on-site supervisor and the five teams were in the box with clear fields of fire.

"Chu sh le," he said simply.

And his mind drifted away from the shooters to other problems of the day.

1 Hour 47 Minutes to Zero

The Hospital

"Hey! What are you doing here?"

The surgical resident shrugged as he shook his colleague's hand. "Got called back from vacation a couple of days early is what. Immerman got a job interview at some high-line body shop in Palm Springs, so I gotta fill in."

"The way it's running, I guess."