«Clear enough,» said Semyon and stood up.

«Anton and Olga, would you please stay,» the boss said brusquely and walked over to the window.

On their way out, people glanced at us curiously, even enviously. A special assignment is always intriguing. I looked across the room, caught Olga's eyes, and smiled. She smiled back.

She looked nothing like the dirty-faced, barefoot young woman who'd drunk cognac in my kitchen last winter. Now she had a stylish haircut, a healthy complexion, and eyes full of… no, the confidence had been there all the time, but now there was a certain flirtatious pride too.

Her punishment had been repealed. Partially, that is.

«Anton, I don't like what's going on here,» the boss said without turning around.

Olga shrugged her shoulders and nodded for me to reply.

«I beg your pardon, Boris Ignatievich?»

«I don't like this protest lodged by the Day Watch.»

«Neither do I.»

«You don't understand, and I'm afraid none of the others do either… Olga, have you at least got some inkling of what's going on?»

«It's very strange Day Watch hasn't been able to find the killer after several years.»

«Yes. Do you remember Krakow?»

«I do, unfortunately. You think we're being set up?»

«It's possible…« The boss moved away from the window a bit. «Anton, do you think that could be the way things are heading?»

«I don't completely understand,» I mumbled.

«Anton, let's assume that we really do have a Maverick wandering around the city, a solitary killer. He's uninitiated. From time to time his powers suddenly surface… he locates one of the Dark Ones and eliminates him, or in this case, her. Would Day Watch be able to locate this Maverick? Unfortunately, believe me, they would. Then the question is: Why haven't they caught and exposed him, when Dark Ones are dying?»

«Only unimportant ones,» I pointed out.

«Correct. Sacrificing pawns is in the tradition…« the boss caught my eye and paused. «In the tradition of the Watch.»

«The Watches,» I said vengefully.

«The Watches,» the boss echoed wearily. «You haven't forgotten… let's think where a maneuver like this could be leading. A blanket accusation of incompetence against the whole of Night Watch? Nonsense. We're supposed to keep tabs on the behavior of the Dark Ones and the observance of the Treaty by known Light Ones, not go hunting for mysterious maniacs. In this case it's Day Watch that is at fault…«

«That means it must be a provocation aimed at a specific person?»

«Well done, Anton. Remember what Yulia said? There's only a handful of us who could do this. That can be proved conclusively. Let's suppose Day Watch has decided to accuse someone of violating the Treaty, to claim that a member of our staff who knows the terms of the Treaty is meting out summary justice on his own account.»

«But that's easy to disprove. Just find the Maverick…«

«And if the Dark Ones find him first? But don't bother to announce the fact?»

«What about alibis?»

«And what if the killings took place at times when this person has no alibi?»

«A tribunal, with a full-scale interrogation,» I said gloomily—having your mind turned inside out isn't a pleasant experience…

«A powerful magician—and these killings were committed by a powerful magician—can close off his mind even against a tribunal. Not deceive the tribunal, just close himself off from it. And in any case, Anton, with a tribunal including Dark Ones, he would have to do it. Otherwise our enemies would learn far too much about us. And if a magician conceals himself against investigation, it's automatically regarded as a confession of guilt, with all the consequences that stem from that so-called confession—both for him and the Watch.»

«You paint a dark picture, Boris Ignatievich,» I said. «Very dark. Almost as dark as the one you painted for me last winter, in my sleep. A young boy with incredible Other powers, an Inferno eruption that would flatten the whole of Moscow…«

«I am telling you the truth here, Anton.»

«What do you expect from me?» I asked bluntly. «This isn't really my area. Am I going to give the analysts a hand? We'll be handling everything they bring in anyway.»

«Anton, I want you to figure out which of us is the target. Who has an alibi for all the known incidents and who doesn't.»

The boss slipped his hand into his jacket pocket and took out a DVD.

«Take this… it's a complete dossier for the whole three-year period. For four people, including me.»

I gulped as I took it.

«The security codes have been removed. But you understand that no one else must see this. You have no right to copy the information. Encrypt all your calculations and procedures… and make the key as complex as you can.»

«I'd really need someone to help,» I suggested hesitantly, with a glance at Olga. But then, what kind of help could she give me? Everything she knew about computers she'd learned from playing games like Heretic and Hexen.

«You check my database yourself,» the boss said, after a pause. «You can use Anatoly for the others. All right?»

«Then what's my assignment?» asked Olga.

«You'll cover the same ground, only by asking direct questions. Interrogating people, in other words. And you'll start with me. Then the other three.»

«All right, Boris.»

«Get on it, Anton,» the boss said with a nod. «Start immediately. You can pass everything else on to your girls; they'll manage.»

«Perhaps I could riddle about a bit with the data?» I asked. «If someone doesn't happen to have an alibi, I could arrange one.»

The boss shook his head.

«No. You don't understand. I don't want to set up any false alibis. I want to make sure that none of us are involved in these killings.»

«Are you serious?»

«Yes. Because nothing's impossible in this world. Anton, the really nice thing about our work is that I can give you an assignment like this. And you'll carry it out. Regardless of who's involved.»

There was still something bothering me, but I nodded and walked toward the door, clutching the precious disc. It came to me in a flash. I turned back and asked:

«Boris Ignatievich…«

The boss and Olga instantly moved apart.

«Boris Ignatievich, you say there are four sets of data here?»

«Yes.»

«For you, Ilya, Semyon…«

«And you, Anton.»

«Why?» I asked dumbly.

«During the standoff on the roof you stayed down in the second level of the Twilight for three minutes, Anton… that's a third-grade power.»

«Impossible,» I said.

«It happened.»

«Boris Ignatievich, you always told me I was just an average magician!»

«Well, let's just say I need an excellent programmer more than one more field operative.»

Any other time I would have felt proud. Offended at the same time, of course, but still proud. I'd always thought that fourth-grade magic was my ceiling, and it would be a long time before I reached it. But just at that moment everything was clouded by a clammy, disgusting feeling—fear. Even though in five years of working in a quiet staff position in the Watch I thought I'd learned not to be afraid of anything: the authorities, hoodlums, diseases…

«This was a second-level intervention…«

«The boundary here's ever-shifting, Anton. You might be capable of more.»

«But we have more than ten third-grade magicians. Why am I one of the suspects?»

«Because you offended Zabulon personally. Tweaked the tail of the head of Moscow's Day Watch. And he's quite capable of setting up a special trap just for Anton Gorodetsky. Or rather, adapting an old trap that was being kept in reserve.»

I swallowed and left without asking any more questions.

Our lab's on the fourth floor too, but in the other wing. I set off hurriedly along the corridor, nodding to people I met, but staying focused, clutching that disc tighter than a passionate young man clutches the hand of the girl he loves.

Was the boss telling the truth?

Could the blow really be aimed at me?

In all likelihood, he was. I'd asked a straight question and been given a straight answer. Of course, as the years go by, even the most Light of magicians acquire a certain degree of canniness and learn to play tricks with words. But the consequences of a direct lie would be too grave even for Boris Ignatievich.

I approached an entry lobby fitted with electronic security systems. I knew that all magicians regarded technology with disdain, and Semyon had shown me once how easy it was to fool the voice analyzer and the iris scanner. But I'd gone ahead with buying these expensive toys anyway. Maybe they were no protection against an Other, but it seemed perfectly possible to me that one day the guys from the Federal Security Service or the mafia would decide to check us out.

«One, two, three, four, five…« I muttered into the microphone, gazing into the camera lens at the same time. The electronic circuits pondered for a few seconds, then a green light came on above the door.

There was no one in the first room, where the server's cooling fans were humming gently. The air-conditioners built into the wall were huffing and puffing, but it was still hot in there. And spring had only just begun…

I didn't go into the system analysts' lab, just walked straight through into my own office. It wasn't all my own. Anatoly, my deputy, worked here too. Sometimes he lived here, spending the nights on the old leather sofa.

When I came in he was sitting at his desk, thoughtfully inspecting an old motherboard.

«Hi,» I said, sitting down on the sofa. The disc was burning my hands.

«It's a goner,» Tolik said gloomily.

«Trash it then.»

«Let me just take its brain out first.» Tolik was thrifty, a habit acquired from years of working in state-financed institutions. We had no problems with finances, but he carefully stockpiled all the old hardware anyway, even if it were of no use to anyone. «Would you believe it, I've been fiddling around with this for half an hour, and it's still dead…«

«It's an outdated antique; why waste time fiddling around with it? Even the machines in accounting are more modern.»

«I could give it to someone… Maybe I should take the cache out too…«

«Tolik, we've got an urgent job to do,» I said.

«Huh?»

«Uh-huh! Look…« I held up the disc. «This is a dossier… a complete dossier on four members of the Watch, including the boss.»

Tolik opened the drawer of his desk, stuck the motherboard in it, and fixed his eyes on the disc.

«Precisely. I'm going to check three of them. And you're going to check the fourth… me.»