The kid's scream brought a momentary halt to the skirmishing. All eyes focused on Batman, then the remaining guns. The two Gagauzi were slack-jawed. They believed in ghosts and devils; they believed they were looking at one.

"Get out of here!" Batman yelled. He had to believe this was all an accident, a twist of fate. A culture clash between the sheep-herding Bessarabians and the drug-dealing Gothamites. If the police came now, Gordon would be ecstatic, but Batman would be as far away from the Connection as ever. He surged forward. The cape billowed as if he were chasing pigeons. In a way, he was.

"Scram!"

The combatants separated. Everything was going well, then one of the Gagauzi looked over at his fallen comrade, at the velvet-covered box lying unattended on the concrete. He veered, and the satin jackets moved faster. Batman knew the contents of the box weren't worth risking anything for, and it slowed his reactions. He got his hands on the satin jacket after the jacket's wearer got his hands on the box. The youth thought fast; he heaved the box to another member of his team, who, in turn, tossed it to the kid in the 4 × 4. Everyone still on their feet moved toward the vehicle, which revved its engine and flash-flooded the street with its full panoply of lights. Batman felt the satin go limp in his hands.

The 4 × 4's wheels screeched as it roared down the street toward the piers with the Gagauzi in hot, but futile, pursuit. Batman threw the jacket aside. He checked on the downed men. It was already too late for the Gagauzi. It might be too late for the Russian by the time Batman carried him to the nearest hospital, but he had to try.

Across the avenue, shielding himself instinctively in shadow, Eddie Lobb---Tiger to himself and his professional associates---surveyed the scene with a heartfelt curse. He hadn't been happy from the moment he heard the Bess-arabs singing. The goddamned sheepherders didn't belong anywhere near Gotham City; they didn't belong in this century. But his boss wanted that painting bad enough to do the deal right here because all the principals wanted to visit America. His heart had skipped a beat when the dark 4 × 4 whisked by. He thought it was as bad as it could get when the first shot was fired. Then, insult to injury, Batman dropped in out of nowhere to mix things up beyond all hope.

When he saw the wooden box---the wooden box---sail into the 4 × 4, Tiger wanted to throw up. None of this was his fault, but the boss wouldn't see it that way when he found out. The boss would ream him out six ways from Sunday and he'd still have to try to track down that priceless, ugly painting.

Nothing was going right. Not since he gave Rose the tigerhead box. Maybe he shouldn't have given a talisman away like that. She hadn't liked it anyway. Shit, she wouldn't touch it until he made her. Maybe the tiger spirit was testing him. Maybe if he passed the test, everything would start going right again. He better pass soon. There were headlights in the street again. The van was coming. He'd have to put his story together in a hurry.

Eddie looked around, making sure the Batman was gone, then started walking toward the lights.

Catwoman watched him get into the van. She pounded her fist against the cement until it was numb.

The Connection watched the procession of digital readouts on the control panel beside him. They were independent of the holograph and transmitted data continuously. Tiger had never guessed their existence. The street brawler always tipped his hand while he stood in the van's cab, waiting for the holograph to fill the back area. Telemetry couldn't read thoughts. That was and probably would remain impossible: a man's thoughts were too idiosyncratic to be worth deciphering, but emotions were simpler and universal. The Connection had been chipping away at the physical code of emotions, and if the telemetry could be believed, his lieutenant was a contradictory mass of dread and hope.

He punched a button that would save the readings for later study, then a second button to initiate the holograph transmission. One of the many monitors facing him flickered to life and filled with a reconstruction of an otherwise anonymous face the Connection had plucked out of a crowd several weeks earlier. Beams of ruby-red light touched the Connection's face and hands, establishing the feedback loops that controlled the holograph. Speakers hissed to life with engine and street noises, then Tiger stepped into the fluorescent illusion.

The first thing the Connection noticed was that Tiger's hands were empty, but they were also behind his back, the technological wizard played dumb. "Well, let me see it," he said amiably.

Dread spiked but, interestingly, hope did not diminish. In human beings, emotions were not zero-sum phenomena.

"The sheepherders struck out, boss. They showed, but they didn't give it over."

"They refused to give you the package?" The Connection tapped a switch with his foot. The laser beams ceased. The holograph was on auto-mimic as the Connection's fingers raced over a keyboard. "Tell me what went wrong?" He initiated a subtle strobe sequence. Tiger would not consciously perceive the flashes, but he would feel the cumulative effect as stress and anxiety.

"Almost everything, before I got there. The sheepherders got hit by a drive-by. They drove up fast and blind, jumped out, and started firing, then jumped back in and drove off again. Maybe one of the southside gangs---who knows---I didn't recognize their colors, but they knew what they were looking for and they hit hard. I was too far away to make a difference---" Tiger shuddered as if he'd just received a mild electric shock, which he had.

"Do you intend to tell me that a handful of punk thugs has my icon?" The mimicry circuits kept the holograph's bland features calm and reposed, but the Connection's lips had twisted into a sneer. He had only agreed to this risky, hare-brained deal because of the icon. None of the players, especially the hopelessly naive and fractious Bessarabians, understood the true value of the articles they offered to trade for arms.

There was sweat on Tiger's upper lip and moving along the ridges of his scarred face. "No." Another shudder. "No, I don't know. I couldn't see what happened to the box. I was too far away."

"You said it was a drive-by. The Bessarabians got hit. The box was with them when you inspected the bodies or it was with the drive-by gang."

"Or maybe the Bess-arab sheepherders double-crossed us."

The telemetry went wild. More importantly, the monitor attached to the Connection's keyboard came to life as he opened a back door into the Gotham Police telex. The cursor flashed rapidly, the screen divided, and data began streaming on both sides, in opposite directions.

"Why would the Bessarabians double-cross us? What could they gain? They'd have nothing to show for it, would they? The Seatainers are moored five miles off shore. Those guns and Stinger missiles might just as well be on the moon for all the good they'll do our little friends. The Seatainers are moored safely, aren't they?"

Tiger's nod was quick, emphatic, and confirmed by the telemetry. That part---the easy part: enough munitions to sustain a small rebellion for a number of weeks---of the operation was under control, but the other more important part, involving the antique Russian icon, destined for an Asian collector's very private gallery and from which the Connection expected control of two percent of the Golden Triangle opium trade, was very clearly out of control. The split screen continued to stream data.