weapons: a key ring and a Swiss Army knife. Back in the observation room he met Lalo, who had arms the size of Ray's thighs. He spoke no English and moved with the nervous delicacy of a man who knows how easily things break. They walked downstairs together. Lalo slipped into room 2, and Ray went into the lobby.
'Madame?' She looked up at him, targeting. 'I'm Dr. Spencer. And you?'
'Jane Smith. Can we go someplace and talk?'
He led her to room 1, which was larger than it had seemed in the camera. He motioned her to the couch and pulled over a chair. He straddled it, the chair back a protective shield between them.
'How may I help you?'
'You have a patient named Blaze Harding. Professor Blaze Harding. It is absolutely imperative that I speak to her.'
'In the first place, we don't give out the names of our clients. In the second place, our clients don't always give us their real names. Ms. Smith.'
'Who are you, really?'
'What?'
'My sources said Dr. Spencer was Mexican. I never met a Mexican with a Boston accent.'
'I assure you that I am – '
'No.' She reached into her waistband and pulled out a pistol apparently made of glass. 'I don't have time for this.' Her face became grim, set; totally mad. 'You are going to quietly take me from room to room until we find Professor Harding.'
Ray paused. 'And if she's not here?'
'Then we'll go to a quiet place where I will cut your fingers off, one by one, until you tell me where she is.'
Lalo eased the door open and swung in with a large black pistol coming up to aim. She gave him an annoyed look and shot him once in the eye. The glass pistol was almost completely silent.
He dropped the gun and fell to one knee, both hands over his face. He began a girlish keening but her second shot sheared off the top of his head. He toppled forward silently in a flood of blood and brain and cerebrospinal fluid.
Her tone of voice was unchanged: earnest and flat. 'You see, the only way you're going to live to see the night is to cooperate with me.'
Ray was struck dumb, staring at the corpse.
'Get up. Let's go.'
'I... I don't think she's here.'
'Then where – ' She was interrupted by the rattling sound of metal shutters rolling down over the door and window.
Ray heard a faint hissing sound, and remembered Marty's story about the interrogation room at St. Bart's. Maybe they had the same architect.
She evidently didn't hear it-too many hours on the firing range-but she looked around and did see the television camera, like a stub of pencil pointed at them from an upper corner of the room. She jerked him around to face the camera and put the pistol to his head. 'You have three seconds to open that door, or I kill him. Two.'
'Senora Smith!' A voice came from everywhere. 'To open that door, it requires a, el gato ... a jack. It will take two minutes, or three.'
'You have two minutes.' She looked at her watch. 'Starting now.'
Ray slumped and suddenly collapsed, rolling out on his back. His head hit the floor with a solid whack.
She made a disgusted noise. 'Coward.' Then a few seconds later, she herself staggered, and then sat down hard on the floor. Wavering, she held the pistol with both hands and shot Ray in the chest four times.
MY PLACE IN THE BOQ had two rooms-a bedroom and an 'office,' a gray cubicle with just enough room for a cooler, two hard chairs, and a small table in front of a simple comm console.
On the table, a glass of wine and my last meal: a gray pill. I had a yellow legal tablet and a pen, but couldn't think of anything to say that wasn't obvious.
The phone rang. I let it go three times, and said hello.
It was Jefferson-my psychiatric nemesis, come to save me in the eleventh hour. The instant he hangs up, I resolved, I'm taking the pill.
But like the room and the pill, Jefferson was gray, more gray than black. I hadn't seen anybody that color since my mother had called to tell me Aunt Franci had died. 'What's wrong?' I said.
'Ray's dead. He was killed by an assassin they sent after Blaze.'
''They'? The Hammer of God?' The wavering silver bar at the top of the screen meant the encryptation was working; we could say anything.
'We assume she's one of them. Spencer's drilling her out now for a jack.'
'How do you know she was after Amelia?'
'She had her picture; was nosing around the hotel here-Julian, she killed Ray just for the hell of it, after she'd killed another man. She walked right through the security screen at the clinic, with a gun and a knife of some plastic. We're scared shitless that she's not here alone.'
'God. They tracked us to Mexico?'
'Can you get up here? Blaze needs your protection – we all need you!'
I actually felt my jaw drop. 'You need me to come up and be a soldier?' All those professional snipers and convicted murderers.
SPENCER UNPLUGGED HIS JACK and walked to the window. He raised the blinds and squinted at the rising sun, yawning. He turned to the woman who was bound to a wheelchair with locked restraints.
'Senora,' he said, 'you are crazy nuts.'
Jefferson had unjacked a minute before. 'That would be my professional opinion, too.'
'What you've done is completely illegal and immoral,' she said. 'Violating a person's soul.'
'Gavrila,' Jefferson said, 'if you have a soul, I couldn't find it in there.'
She jerked at her bonds and the wheelchair rocked toward him.
'She does have a point, though,' he said to Spencer.
'We can't very well turn her over to the police.'
'I will, as you Americans say, keep her under observation indefinitely. Once she's well, she's free to go.' He scratched the stubble on his chin. 'At least until the middle of September. You believe that, too?'
'I can't do the math. But Julian and Blaze can, and they don't have any doubts.'
'It's the Hammer of God coming down,' Gavrila said. 'Nothing you can do will stop it.'
'Oh, shut up. Can we put her someplace?'
'I have what you would call a 'rubber room.' No lunatic has ever escaped from it.' He went to the intercom and arranged for a man named Luis to take her there.
He sat down and looked at her. 'Poor Lalo; poor Ray. They didn't suspect what a monster you were.'
'Of course not. Men just see me as a receptacle for their lust. Why should they fear a cunt?'
'You're going to find out a lot about that,' Jefferson said.
'Go ahead and threaten me. I'm not afraid of rape.'
'This is more intimate than rape. We're going to introduce you to some friends. If you do have a soul, they'll find it.'
She didn't say anything. She knew what he meant; she knew about the Twenty from being jacked with him. For the first time, she looked a little frightened.
There was a knock on the door, but it wasn't Luis. 'Julian,' Jefferson said, and gestured. 'Here she is.'
Julian studied her. 'She's the same woman we saw in the monitor at St. Bart's? Hard to believe.' She was staring at him with an odd expression. 'What?'
'She recognizes you,' Jefferson said. 'When Ingram tried to kidnap Blaze off the train, you followed them. She thought you were with Ingram.'
Julian walked over to her. 'Take a good look. I want you to dream about me.'
'I'm so frightened,' she said.
