channel after channel, waiting for just the right show to appear, but no one was watching it. The plane was too small for hiding places. Allen knew that some pilots turned on lights or radios or other electronics when they left their unhangared planes to give the appearance of occupancy. A channel-changing plasma was something new, but he
supposed it was effective. But why would a security-minded person leave the door unlocked? Only one reason came to mind: because he had stepped out for only a moment, maybe just to the GA building for a vending machine snack or newspaper.
He backed off the step and crouched to look under the plane toward the general aviation building and terminal. No one in sight.
He stood and went into the plane. The light from the TV was enough to guide him to a small desk, where a laptop computer, a printer, and scattered papers lay. His heart shrank in his chest, a painful movement that left him hyperventilating. Printed on the top page was a picture of Julia, a brief description printed underneath. Scratchy, handwritten notes in the margin:
Next to the last line was a handwritten notation:
A toilet flushed.
That minijet-engine sound familiar to every post-diaper human in the developed world.
He looked back toward the plasma, past it to a small alcove, where a door opened.
He grabbed a handful of papers and bolted for the exit. Something crashed behind him, then something else. His head cracked against the top frame of the opening. He ducked under, fell, missed the steps completely, and landed on the tarmac, wrenching his shoulder, pulling muscles in his back. The papers blew out of his hand and whipped away. He scrambled under the plane, came to his feet, and ran.
Like an auditory shadow of his own footsteps came the rhythmic footfalls of his pursuer, close. He bolted past the Piper Saratoga. He swerved around another plane and sprinted with all his might toward the third hangar. It sounded as if the man behind him slammed into a plane, crashed to the ground, and returned to the pursuit, all in the space of four seconds.
Allen flashed under the Airplane Crossing sign and promptly crashed into a mechanic who'd stepped into his path from between the hangar doors. Before he was ever really down, he was back up again, the mechanic still rolling and hollering.
Past the first hangar.
One more and he'd—
A bullet slammed into him. No noise—just the pinpoint force of a locomotive. He went down, hitting a patch of oily tarmac face-first, feeling gravel bite into his flesh, gouging deep furrows and ripping away a two-inch slice of beard.
His lungs burned for air, his mouth gasped in vain. Finally a dusty cloud roiled in, at once relieving and torturing his lungs. His spine felt crushed. He tried to move, and did—but not well and not without a giant's hand painfully squeezing his torso.
He cursed the bulky Kevlar vest under his clothing.
He screamed and got his legs under him. He leaped forward. The gauntlet spilled out, and he knocked it aside in a mad scurry to put distance between him and his would-be killer. Fire radiated between his shoulder blades, but he pushed it aside.
Pounding behind him . . .
Then nothing.
The gauntlet must have slowed him.
Then he realized: his pursuer had stopped to aim. Allen zagged to the right, then veered left. He heard a plunk against the hangar by his shoulder, like a rock tossed at it. Not a rock, he knew: a bullet. He was almost at the alleyway between the hangars, wondering if he'd make it down the narrow corridor without being picked off, when he saw light slicing the twilight from an opening in the hangar doors. That was the way. Shut the doors behind him. Of course, it would have a lock or latch or
He made for the opening.
Almost there . . .
Another bullet punched him in the back. His face hit the edge of the door. He bounced off, hit the ground, rolled to push himself up.
The impenetrable bulk of a gauntleted arm encircled his throat and yanked him up.
sixty-four
Julia heard a scream and had just followed Stephen into the alley through the hangar's side entrance when the big sliding door in front clattered as if someone were pushing it open. She stopped in her tracks, holding on to the door.
'Stephen!' she called. 'He's in here!'
Then she was back inside, dodging around planes and taking an infuriatingly circuitous path toward the front.
Shortly after Allen had left, it became too dark to maneuver safely through the hangar, so she had flicked on the overhead lights. Now she watched for approaching shadows on the painted gray floors. She expected to collide with Allen at any moment. She cleared the last plane and froze solid.
Outside the big doors, illuminated only by a strip of pale light, Atropos held Allen in a death grip. Allen's head was yanked backward, his arm twisted grotesquely around his back, where Atropos gripped his wrist and hair in one black fist. The killer spun to glare inside, jerking Allen around like a doll. His other hand clutched Allen's exposed neck.
Dressed in black that faded into the darkening night, his skin white in the hangar's glow, Atropos resembled Julia's nightmare vision of Dracula—if Dracula needed vision correction and a comb. He smiled at her, a victorious grin. She fought the urge to back away.
Then he moved—maybe it was no more than a twitch—and she knew he was about to make his escape.
She raised her gun, centering the sights on his forehead. He stared back into her eyes.
Allen was gagging, strangled. He rolled his eyes toward her, and she realized that he was not gasping for air;
