"You're being paranoid, Durg," K.C. said.

They were almost at the gate, which stood open. On the far wall a small bronze plaque proclaimed RICHARD REEVES JUVENILE DIAGNOSTIC AND DEVELOPMENTAL CENTER through patina and soot. On the near wall a sign said DO NOT PICK UP HITCHHIKERS IN THIS AREA.

Beyond those walls was Sprout.

From what Tach had told him of Takisa pang of guilt here, over possibly leaving his friend in a tight place-a tendency to err on the side of caution would be a highly desirable trait in a Morakh. K.C.'s right, he told himself. "No. We go in."

Durg turned his head a fraction to the right, flicked Mark with his lilac eyes. Mark swallowed. Years of association with the alien told him that was the closest a Morakh could come to open mutiny. He set his jaw and tried to look determined.

Reeves occupied an outsize lot with a paved courtyard. Durg cranked the wheel to bring the car around in front of the cement steps behind a station wagon with heavy wire mesh in the rear windows-

And abruptly slammed the stick into reverse, Mark's chin bouncing off the front seat back as the LeBaron accelerated backward.

Not even Morakh hearing and Morakh reflexes were quite quick enough. The long sedan with the tinted windshield was already blocking the gate, trapping them.

"Daigla bal'nagh!" Durg braked to a bucking stop and reached inside his dark suit coat. He did have a gun in his shoulder holster, a Colt 10-mm auto that would shoot through an engine block and knock down a man in body armor.

K. C. dug nails into his arm like talons. "No! Look." Men in flak jackets, dark blue baseball caps, and identical aviator sunglasses were pouring out of the building and around the brick sides, pointing shotguns and M16s at the car.

"Holy shit," Mark gulped. His hand dived into the inside pocket of his sport coat.

"Come out of the car with your hands up," Lieutenant Norwalk said through the megaphone. He stood tall at the head of the front steps, ignoring the SWAT team's frantic signals to seek cover. He knew these New Age wimps. Mark Meadows would never hurt him. Norwalk bet he didn't even carry a gun.

As he lowered the loudspeaker he cheated his face slightly to the right, so that the Action News team on the roof opposite would be sure to catch his best profile. He was a rangy man who really and truly thought he looked like actor Scot Glenn.

The LeBaron's windows were tinted, so that he couldn't see clearly inside. But he thought he saw movement, and a ripple of tension among the crouching SWAT men confirmed it.

The rear passenger's side door nearest Norwalk began to open. He put his head back and waited, conscious that even the way the late-morning bluster ruled the sandy hair brushed across his balding crown was reminiscent of Scot Glenn.

Out of the car stepped… George Bush.

"Hey, kid," the SWAT cop yelled from behind the trunk of a cruiser blocking the street above Reeves. "Get back. Get out of here."

The boy kept coming. A tall athletic-looking red-haired kid in a leather jacket, who obviously thought he was Major Bad News.

"Fuck," the policeman said under his breath. They could have the fucking news teams set up to cover the big event, but they couldn't detail enough people to keep civilians from wandering into the line of fire. Too much danger of alerting the quarry. Oh, yeah. He should have stayed in the army. He stood up, flipping on the safety of his Remington 870 riot gun. Then he stopped, leaned the shotgun against the car, and began taking off his uniform.

Blaise knelt beside a pair of officers behind the sedan parked across the gate into Reeves. The policeman's uniform was a couple of sizes too big, especially in the gut, but that wasn't too overt. With his riot helmet and dark glasses and his tail tucked down inside his flak jacket, nobody spared him a glance.

He was filled with wild hot energy, the energy of repletion, like taking a woman for the first time, or mind-controlling a man into cutting his own throat with a razor. The kind of energy that needed occasional venting so it wouldn't get the better of him. It was coming down payback time on Mark Meadows and K.C. fucking Strange. He knew how to savor these moments.

Thanks to New York regulations, when you dropped a dime on someone, you still actually dropped a dime. Bloat would suspect. At Blaise's first unguarded moment, Bloat would know. But he would never take action any length of time after the fact. Bloat needed the jumpers, needed their drugs, needed their numbers when the Man came to call.

More than that, Bloat was too cowardly to burn Blaise in cold blood. He was too sensitive. The ultimate eighties kind of guy.

Blaise giggled. A couple of cops briefly turned faces hidden by sunsplash on visors toward him, but their body language showed neither surprise nor concern. Giggling is more common on the firing line than jackboot-opera cop shows want you to believe.

Then the cops' body language changed to stone confusion.

"What is all this here? What is this? I approve of men on the front lines in the war against crime in our streets showing initiative, but don't you think this is taking things too far?"

No, Lieutenant Norwalk thought, bullshit-no way. This cannot be the president. But still-he looked like Bush, and he acted like Bush, and he had that prissy little mouth… and Christ knew he talked like George Bush.

The SWAT troopies were back on their heels, lifting weapons off-line in confusion. They couldn't quite believe it was Bush either, but if it was, their nifty Hard Corps vests with SWAT in big tape letters on the back were not going to keep their asses out of Leavenworth on a long-term lease if they pointed fucking guns at him. And it would be just like the weenie to pull a spot inspection of some chickensquat D-home on zero notice.

No, no, where's the Secret Service? Reality got hold of Norwalk's brain again, and he opened his mouth to give orders to grab the impostor. Then a small nasty-looking number in black leather stuck her Michelle Pfeiffer snub nose out the door behind the pseudopresident. Her pale eyes met his.

"Put down your guns, men," Lieutenant Norwalk rapped. "Can't you see it's the president? Dammit, move when I tell you!"

The SWAT men eyed him dubiously but obeyed, straightening up from behind the station wagon, rising out of the empty flower beds. Norwalk had a rep for liking to chew ass. If he said this was George Bush, that made it official.

The little cupcake in black sagged against the car with drool trailing from the corner of her mouth. Since she was a lot more fun to look at than the president, several of the team noticed her open her mouth as though about to scream. A plainclothes cop who looked like a compressed Jean-Claude van Damme slid around from the driver's side and caught her arm just above the elbow. No sound came out of her. George Bush strode up the steps. Lieutenant Norwalk held the door for him. The squat cop and his prisoner followed.

In the foyer George Bush looked left and right. No one in sight. He stooped slightly to honk the girl's left butt-cheek. "No one can say I don't take an active interest in today's young people," he croaked.

"If I was in my own body, I'd break your arm for you, you asshole," Lieutenant Norwalk said, stumbling slightly. The president gave the policeman a horrible stroke victim's leer. "It's nothing I haven't done before, my child."

"That was Mark. I don't even know who you are, you creepy blue thing, so just fucking watch it."

"I'm your salvation, you ungrateful little-"

"Shh," Durg said pointedly. He gave the captive a quick slap on the side of the head, enough to scramble whatever wits she had been able to gather. Or he, actually. Most people who were jumped were incapable of doing anything meaningful for a while, but he was taking no chances.