Contest

Dickson led them to his desk where he reached into an open drawer and pulled out a file.

'Sure, no problem,' Dickson fished through the file. 'It shouldn't take more than a few minutes anyway. Just give me a minute here.'

Swain and Holly waited.

'All right,' Dickson said at last, holding up a sheet. 'This is the statement you gave on the night of the incident. What we'd like to do is include it in the departmental report, but by law we can't do it without your written consent. Is that okay with you?'

'That's fine.'

'Good, then I'll just read it to you to make sure it's okay, and then you can sign the report and we can all be out of here.'

Status Check: Officials from each system report

that teleports are ready. Awaiting transmission

of grid co-ordinates of labyrinth.

Dickson straightened himself in his chair.

'All right, then,' he began to read from the statement, 'at approximately 8.30 p.m. on the night of October 2, 2000, I was working in the emergency room of St Luke's Hospital, New York City. I had been called in to do a radiology consult on a gunshot wound to a police officer. X-rays, C-spines and a CAT-scan had been taken and I had just returned to the emergency ward with the films when five young Latin American men wearing gang colours burst in through the main doors of the emergency ward with automatic weapons firing.

'Everyone in the ward dived for the floor as the wave of bullets smashed into everything in sight -- computer screens, whiteboards, everything.

'The gang members fanned out immediately, shouting to each other, 'Find him and kill him!' Two of them brandished automatic rifles while the other three held semi-automatic pistols.'

Swain listened in silence as Dickson recounted the events of that night. He remembered being told later that the wounded cop had been with the Vice Squad. Apparently, he'd been working undercover in Queens with a crack-dealing gang when his cover had been blown during a botched raid. He'd been winged during the shoot-out, and now the gang-bangers -- incensed at his role in the bust -- were here to finish him off.

Dickson kept reading: 'I was standing just outside the wounded policeman's room when the five men stormed the hospital. There was noise everywhere -- people were screaming, the men's guns were booming -- and I ducked behind the nearest corner.

'Then suddenly I saw one of the pistol-bearing gang-bangers rush toward the wounded cop's room. I don't know what made me do it, but when I saw him reach the doorway to the room and see the cop inside -- and smile -- I leapt at him from behind, tackled him hard.

'We slammed into the doorframe together, but he elbowed me sharply in the mouth -- cutting my lip -- and we fell apart and then suddenly before I knew what was happening, he was swinging his pistol around toward me.

'I caught his wrist in mid-flight -- held the gun clear of my body -- just as one of the other gang members arrived right in front of us.

'This second youth saw our struggle and instantly raised his own pistol at me but -- still holding onto the first gang member's wrist -- I whirled around and, with my free hand, punched the second youth square on the wrist of his gun-hand, causing his fingers to reflexively spring open and drop the gun. On the return journey, I used that same fist to backhand the youth across the jaw, knocking him out cold.

'It was at that moment that the first gang member started pulling indiscriminately on the trigger on his gun -- even though I was still gripping his wrist. Gunshots boomed, bullets shredded the walls.

'I had to do something, so, pushing my feet off the doorframe, I hurled us both to the floor. We tumbled to the ground together -- a clumsy rolling heap, so clumsy in fact that the youth's gun was pushed awkwardly up against his own head and then--'

And then abruptly -- shockingly -- the gun had gone off and the youth's head had simply exploded.

Swain didn't need to listen to Dickson any more. He could see it all in his mind's eye as if he was still there. He could remember the star of blood that had sprayed all over the door. He could still feel the youth's body go limp against his own.

Dickson was still reading the statement.

'--as soon as the other gang members saw their dead comrade, they fled. I believe it was about then that I passed out. This statement is dated 3/10/00, 1:55 a.m., signed Stephen Swain, M.D.'

Dickson looked up from the sheet of paper.

Swain sighed. 'That's it. That's my statement.'

'Good,' Dickson handed the typewritten statement to Swain. 'If you just sign there where it says 'Consent granted', that'll just about do it, Dr Swain. Oh, and may I say once again, on behalf of the New York Police Department, thank you.'

Status Check: Grid co-ordinates of labyrinth to

be transmitted to all systems upon electrification.

----ooo0ooo------

'We'll see you in the morning then,' Officer Paul Hawkins said as he stood inside the enormous translucent glass doors of the New York State Library.

'See you then,' the lieutenant said, closing the doors on Hawkins' face.

Hawkins stepped away from the doors and nodded to his partner, Parker, who stepped forward with a large ring of keys. As Parker began to bolt the first of four locks on the huge translucent doors, Hawkins could see the blurred outline of the lieutenant affixing bright yellow police tape across the entrance. The tape pressed up against the other side of the glass and Hawkins could make out the familiar words: police line -- do not

CROSS.

He checked his watch.

5:15 p.m.

Not bad, he thought. It had only taken them twenty minutes to skirt the building and seal off all the entrances and exits.

Parker finished off the last lock and turned around.

'All done,' she said.

Hawkins thought about what the other cops had said about Christine Parker. Three years his senior, she was hardly pretty -- for that matter, hardly petite. Big hands, dark heavy-set features, good with a gun. Unfortunately, her image hadn't been helped along by reports of insensitivity -- she was known in the department for her rather icy demeanour. Hawkins shrugged it off. If she could hold her own, that was all that mattered to him.

'Good,' he turned to face the enormous atrium of the library. 'Do you know what happened? I was only called in this afternoon.'

'Somebody broke in and slashed up a security guard. Pretty messy,' Parker replied casually.

'Broke in?' Hawkins frowned. 'I didn't see any forced entry on any of the doors we sealed.'

Status Check: 0:44:16 to Electrification.

Parker put her keys in her pocket and shrugged. 'Don't ask me. All I know is that they haven't determined point of entry yet. SID's coming in tomorrow morning to do that. Guy probably picked the lock on one of the storage doors. Those things have got to be at least forty years old.'

She cocked her head indifferently. 'Larry at Dispatch told me they spent most of the day just trying to clean it all up.'

Parker walked over to the Information Desk and sat down. 'Anyhow,' she put her feet up on the counter, 'this isn't so bad. Doesn't bother me if I get double time for sitting in a library all night.'

'Come on, Daddy!' Holly said impatiently. 'I'm missing Pokemon!'

'Okay, okay,' Swain pushed open the front door. Holly burst past him, dashed into the house.

Swain pulled his key from the door and called after her, 'Don't slide on the carpet!'