Shutz looked baffled, then pointed to his ears. Otto nodded. "Scheisse." He gestured at the now-silent machine guns, miming packing them and moving forward. Shutz nodded, then opened his mouth and began shouting orders. Or at least he appeared to be telling troopers what to do: Otto found to his bemusement that he couldn't hear them.

The ground was still shaking. Peering back up the road, it wasn't hard for Otto to see why. Two more wagons were plodding grimly towards the pile of dust and smoke that had been the gatehouse-and behind them, what looked like a battalion of royal dragoons. In the predawn twilight they rode at no more than a slow walking pace. Otto shook his head; the ringing in his ears went on, but he was beginning to hear other sounds now. He raised his glasses, fumbled with the power button, and peered at the wagon. This one carried soldiers in helmets and half-armor, and a complicated mess of stuff, not the barrels of explosives he'd half-expected to see. "Interesting," he murmured, looking round for a messenger. "You!"

"My lord!" The man shouted.

"Tell Anders to get his guns ready to move. We're to cover this force." He pointed at the approaching dragoons. "They're going to break in. Go!" How they were going to break into the castle he had no idea, but Egon cleared expected them to do so, and Otto had more than a slight suspicion that the new explosives in the oxcart weren't Egon's only surprise.

Strung out on caffeine and fatigue, Judith Herz suppressed a yawn as she watched the technicians with the handcart maneuver the device into position on the scaffold. There was a big cross spray-painted in the middle of the top level, and they were taking pains to move it so that it was centered perfectly. The size of a beer keg, with a briefcase-sized detonation controller strapped to it with duct tape, the FADM didn't look particularly menacing. She glanced over at Rich Hall, who was sitting patiently in a director's chair, the Pelikan case containing ARMBAND between his feet. Cruz was about, somewhere, of course: They were taking pains to keep it within arm's reach at all times. Good, Judith thought tiredly. Everything's ready, except for the PAL codes. And head office, of course, but they'd be on-site shortly. The sooner they could get everything hooked up, the sooner they could all go and get some well-earned sleep.

A flicker of motion near the entrance to the tent caught her eye and she looked round. The new arrivals seemed tired: the colonel, talking animatedly to the man-in-black from the West Wing, a couple of aides following in their wake. Oh great, she thought: rubberneckers. "Wait here," she hold the technicians, then walked down the ramp to meet the newcomers.

"Colonel." She smiled. "And, uh, Dr. James."

Smith glanced sidelong at him. "He's our vertical liaison. With WARBUCKS."

"Dead straight." Dr. James looked tired, too: The bags under his eyes suggested the lights had been burning late in the Naval Observatory grounds. "Let's take a look at the package."

"We haven't attached ARMBAND yet," Judith began to say as Dr. James marched straight towards the scaffold.

"Then do it, right now. We need to get this thing done." What's the sudden hurry? she wondered. "Yes. Sir." She waved at Rich, who sat up sharply and mimed a query until she beckoned. "What's up?"

"Change of situation." James was terse. "I have the PAL codes." He tapped his breast pocket. "Colonel?"

"Dr. James is here as an official observer for the White House," Smith reassured her. "Also, we have Donald Reckitt from NNSA, Mary Kay Kare from, from the people who made ARMBAND, Richard Tracy from the Office of Special Plans-"

The introductions went on until the scaffolding began to creak under their weight. Finally they worked their way down through the layers of observers and their credentials to the technical staff. "And Dr. Rand, who will confirm that the munition is release ready, check the connections to the detonation controller, and hand over to Major Alvarez and Captain Hu for deployment."

"Certainly. If you folks wouldn't mind giving me some elbow room?.." Rand, fiftyish and somewhat bohemian in appearance, looked as irritated by the institutional rubbernecking as Herz felt. As FTO's tame expert on these gadgets-indeed, as one of the nation's leading experts-he'd studied under Teddy Taylor, although the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty meant that his expertise was somewhat abstract-he understood the FADMs as well as anyone else. And he ran through his checklist surprisingly rapidly. "All looking good," he announced, finally. "Considering where it's been."

"That's enough about that." Dr. James spoke sharply: "Not everyone here is briefed."

"Oh? Really." Rand smiled lopsidedly as he straightened up. "Well that makes it alright then." He patted the bomb, almost affectionately. "For what it's worth, this one's ready to go. Excuse me, ladies, gentlemen…"

As Rand left the platform, the colonel glanced at Herz. "If you want to call the items?…"

"Uh, yes, sir…" She stared at her clipboard and blinked a few times, wishing the tension between her brows would go away. Focusing was hard. "PAL Codes. I need to contact WAR-the designated release authority," she corrected. She looked at Dr. James.

He nodded. "This is what you want," he said, handing her a manilla envelope from his jacket pocket.

Judith slit it open with a fingernail. There was a single sheet of paper, on White House stationery, with a brief note, a pair of eight-digit numbers, and a famous signature. "Well." She breathed out. "This looks to be in order, so"-she clipped it behind her checklist-"we move on to ARMBAND. Rich, this is your curtain call. Major? We're ready to attach ARMBAND."

Alvarez waved Rich Hall through to the front of the platform. "Okay, here it is," he said. He cleared his throat. "I've only done this a couple of times before."

He opened the shockproof case and pulled out four black rubber feet. "Shoes." Rocking the bomb carefully side to side, he wedged the feet underneath it. "The payload needs to be electrostatically isolated from ground, or this won't work." Next, he picked up a drab plastic box, its upper face broken only by a winking red LED, a button, and a key slot. "Okay, now for the duct tape." With that, he pulled out a reel of duct tape and a box cutter, and taped the box to the top of the bomb. Finally, he held up a key: "arming key." He inserted it in the slot and gave it a half turn, and addressed Alvarez: "ARMBAND is not yet armed. To activate it, it's necessary to give the key another half turn, then push the button. Five seconds later, it does its stuff. You do not want to be touching it when that happens." He picked up his case and stepped back. "You have control now."

"I have control," Alvarez echoed. He nodded at Wall: "You'd better leave the platform now, sir."

Is that all? Judith blinked again, feeling obscurely cheated. It was like black magic-a device that could transport a payload into another universe?-and yet it seemed so mundane.

"Agent Herz?" Colonel Smith prodded her.

"Oh? I'm sorry." She nodded. "Major Alvarez?" she called.

"Ma'am." Alvarez and Hu were out of uniform-nobody wanted inconvenient questions about what army officers were doing in a field outside Concord-but nobody would mistake them for civilians, not with that crew cut and attitude. "I have the checklist."

He knelt down beside the package and unclipped a panel on the detonation controller strapped to the side of the bomb. Pulling open a laminated ring-bound checklist, he began to flip through pages, periodically double-checking a switch position. "Check, please," he told Hu.

"Check."

"I need the PAL code now."

"Here are your numbers." Herz read out the eight-digit sequence from the letter. The audience fell silent, like witnesses at an execution. As, in a manner of speaking, they were: Alvarez and Hu the hangmen, adjusting the noose; Herz the prison governor, handing over the death warrant; and parties unknown standing on the trapdoor… well, at least they won't feel a thing, she told herself. More than you can say for their victims, over the years. "Remember, we want a sixty-second delay. If the package doesn't disappear in front of your eyes within ten seconds, then turn the key to safe ARMBAND and enter the abort code. Are you ready?"