"I'm busy. You may write for an appointment, after the convention." The door closed to a few inches, and again Jack stopped it.)ack produced the envelope from his pocket.

"Okay," he said. "Here's my appointment request. I'd like you to read it now."

He lightly tossed the envelope inside and let Fleur close the door. He looked down the corridor to see two security men walking toward him, doubtless summoned by the phone ladies. Their expressions, in the face of a man who used to throw Russian tanks off Korean mountainsides, lacked confidence.

"Uh," the nearest one said.

Jack grinned at them. "No problem, officers. I'll be leaving as soon as Miss van Renssaeler gives me an appoint_ ment."

Thev looked at each other, then decided to wait. "We were told there was a problem," one of them said. "Problem? No problem."

The guards did not seem reassured.

The door opened. "Five minutes," said Fleur. "And that's all you get." She turned to the men in the suite with her. "Reverend Pickens, Mr. Smart, Mr. Johnson, I hope you'll excuse me. Something's come up."

The men filed out past Jack, offering mixed distrust and relief. Jack stepped into the room, and Harstein followed. "Who's this man?" Fleur said. "I didn't agree to see him."

"Josh Davidson, madam." Harstein gave a stage bow, sweeping low.

"He's an old friend of the family. He's with me."

"He can wait outside."

"Madam, I will not interfere in your business," Harstein said. "An old fellow like me finds it hard to wait in cold air-conditioned corridors. I won't be any harm. Have I not a moist eye, a dry hand, a yellow cheek, a white beard, a decreasing leg, an increasing belly? I'm an object of pity. Pray do not scorn and cast me out."

Fleur looked at him. The corners of her mouth twitched in reluctant amusement.

"This is against my better judgment," she said, "but you can stay."

Fortunately, her better judgment did not prevail.

The Jackson motion came up, was seconded, passed overwhelmingly. Harstein kissed Fleur's hand goodbye, and he and Jack made their way to the elevators.

"We may have just made a president," Jack said. He felt pleasantly drunk, as if on champagne.

Harstein just kept walking for the elevator. "Hey. We won."

"Things without all remedy should be without regard," said Harstein. "What's done is done." He looked at Jack. "And so, too, are we done. Never speak to me again, Jack, never come near me or my family. I'm warning you."

Jack's blood turned chill. "Whatever you say," he said. He let Harstein take the first elevator by himself.

Sara had the proper plastic smile molded into her face when he stepped off the People Mover with his shiny new travel bag slung over the shoulder of his leisure suit. She looped her arms around his neck and hugged him with a fervor that surprised her.

"Uncle George!" she squealed. "Oh, it's so good to see you!"

Polyakov hugged her and patted her shoulder. "Not so shrill, child. Eardrums are brittle things at my age. Why didn't you meet me at the gate?" He took her arm and steered her into the traffic streaming toward the escalators that led to the baggage carousels.

"They're not letting anybody but passengers with tickets into the boarding area. Are you sure it's safe to just come in openly like this?"

Smiling, to all appearance chattering happily to the elderly relative she'd just been reunited with, she nodded toward the security checkpoint where the passengers were filing through the metal detectors like cows through the chute for their appointment with the hammer. A pair of young men stood to one side, eyeing the crowd as discreetly as anybody that beefy could. Their suits were dark, and tight under the left armpits. A little fleshtone wire trailed from each man's ear.

He smiled. "They're looking for dangerous Russian spies trying to get out of Atlanta, not back in."

"But the airport-"

"I could have taken a bus, I grant, especially since the good doctor's friend happened to transport me to the Port Authority in New York City." At the mention of Tachyon,

Sara's face twisted briefly, as if she'd stepped on a tack. "But that would have been too slow, and anyway they're doubtless watching the bus terminals as well. Also, I detest buses."

They were on the moving stair now. "You heard what happened?" Sara asked.

"It was all over the televisions that infest the passenger waiting areas in LaGuardia-how lonely your capitalist lives must be, that you use your enormous production to surround yourselves so completely with synthetic company. An ace assassin making an attempt on the life of a potential presidential nominee, especially one as controversial and ethnic as Jackson-it's all raised quite the sensation."

That was how the police and media saw it, of course: the hunchbacked kid in leather had been trying to hit Jackson, and Dr. Tachyon had gotten in the way.

"How is it with Tachyon?" the Soviet asked.

She stumbled a little coming off the escalator. The hand that had caressed her, touched her last night as so few men had, was cooked meat and splintered bone now. The way that made her feel-the way it made her feel was something she would not confront now. Nothing matters, she told herself, but staying alive long enough to see Andi avenged.

"The doctor," he prodded gently, "how is he?"

"He's in what they call stable condition. They had to amputate, but he's recovering well. They have him in some hospital, the media aren't saying which one. The police have tied his assailant to Ricky's murder, and the fight with Jack Braun Thursday night. They know he can walk through walls. Lieutenant Herlihy has finally had to bite the bullet and admit he's got an ace killer on the loose. Not just a killer but a political assassin, and he's stalking the convention."

She didn't try to keep the bitter satisfaction from her voice. If only the police had listened to nie, she thought, though what they could have done even if they had was none too clear. At least it would have meant somebody thought she was more than a hysterical woman who'd been spurned by her love object.

Somebody other than the man who called himself George Steele.

They walked toward the sliding robot doors to the humid outside. Sara had a car in the lot that she'd rented under an assumed name-now, of course, Atlanta's finest were falling all over themselves with eagerness to talk to her. Even if she'd had anything more to say to them, she had no illusions about their ability to protect her from that pale-eyed youth who hummed as he killed.

Polyakov shook his head. "The bad times are coming for wild cards in this country. Whatever we do here, that is true, I'm afraid. But it makes it that much more imperative we stop the madman Hartmann. You might have to take a more active role."

She stopped dead in the middle of the doors, which spasmed open and shut in mechanical frenzy. "No! I've already told you. I can't do that."

He took her by the arm and urged her out to the sidewalk. Diesel fumes and cabbies assailed them. They ignored both.

"Someone has to. Tachyon may not be able."

"Why not you? You're a killer ace, too. Why not use your power?"

He glanced around without moving his head. No one was nearby. "My. Our goal is to prevent World War III. How well would that end be served if an American presidential candidate was killed by a KGB ace?"

That was his goal. She turned and darted across the street, avoiding being run down more by luck than by design. He followed more cautiously.

He was puffing slightly when he caught up in the shortterm parking. "It was clever of you to check your answering machine."

He was trying to gentle her like he would a frightened animal. She didn't care. "Clever of you to leave a message saying where you were coming in and when." She opened the driver's door of the rose-gray rental Corolla and slid in.