“It’s okay for me to carry his messages,” she pointed out. “It’s okay for me to pass on messages from your pet streetfighter. What’s notokay for me to know? What is it that your apprentice Webwalkers have turned up that even Interpol isn’t supposed to know?”

The problem, Madoc knew, was time. What Interpol didn’t know yet, they might very soon find out—and they’d find out all the sooner if he were fool enough to start blabbing to Diana Caisson, even in the privacy of his apartment or his car. It was easier for him to turn up evidence of work done through illegal channels than it was for officers of the law, but this case was now a triple disappearance, with a rich icing of crazier-than-usual Eliminator antics. The police would be making a very big effort now, even if they hadn’t before. Whoever had stirred up this hornet’s nest had done a thorough job. He had no time to argue with Diana, and the only way to shut her up was to give in on something.

Anyway, he rationalized, if he forced her to stay behind that would only increase the danger that she might do something really inconvenient by way of getting her own back—like calling up the LAPD and sending them after him.

“It could be dangerous,” he said, knowing that it wouldn’t serve as a deterrent.

“It’ll probably be less dangerous,” she countered, “if we both know exactly what we’re trying to do. What have you found?”

Before answering, Madoc collected the last of the crude mechanical tools he’d come back to gather. The men who had broken into Silas Arnett’s house hadn’t needed cutting gear and crowbars, but Madoc hadn’t got the kind of technical backup they must have had, and he was heading for a different kind of house. If it was a fortress, it was likely to be a brutefortress, not a sophisticated affair of anxious eyes, clever locks, and mazy software. He was able to shut Diana up with a gesture—but only because the gesture implied that he’d pick up the conversation later.

Finally, he led her to the door of the apartment and let her follow him out. He signaled once again that he couldn’t speak, for fear of the eyes and ears with which the walls were undoubtedly sown, and she had perforce to wait until they got into the car. Even then, he insisted on bringing the vehicle out into the street before relaxing slightly.

It was midmorning and the traffic was well below its daytime peak, but it didn’t matter—he wasn’t headed downtown.

When Diana was certain that he had run out of excuses she repeated her last question, richly salted with seething impatience.

“An address way out east,” he told her. “It’s not a million miles away from the alleys, but it’s not gang turf. Above the ground it still looks derelict, but the word is that some heavy gantzing’s been done underneath by way of excavation. The hole’s been set up for use as a black-box drop site, supposedly untraceable. Nothing’s authentically untraceable, but no one’s had a reason yet to send hooks into this one. Harriet’s boys tipped her off that something was on, though, and she dug up some background on it, working back from the cowboy contractors who did the gantzing.”

“I thought the idea of gantzing was to raise buildings up,” Diana objected, “not to dig holes.”

“The neobacteria that cement walls together are only part of the gantzing set,” Madoc told her wearily. “You have to have others that can unstick things, else you wouldn’t be able to shape the product. Moleminers use the unstickers to burrow through solid rock. It’s not the ideal way to dig out a permanent cellar or tunnel but it does the trick—and you can use the cementers to harden the walls and ceilings, making sure they’ll bear the load. Anyway, that’s not the point. Even moonlight labor has to be paid for. The title deeds to the property are locked up tight, but there’s a trail leading back from the people who worked on it to one of the people Damon told me to ask about: the one who can’t be located in San Diego, Surinder Nahal.”

“You think these underground workings might be where Silas Arnett’s being held? The Praill girl too?”

“Maybe. Maybe it’s something else entirely. All I know is that I need to take a look, and there aren’t any spy eyes I can use. The Old Lady dug up some information about the security they installed, but being gantzers rather than silicon men it’s mostly solid. Not much of a challenge to a man of my talents, but I guess they didn’t want to bring in state-of-the-art stuff because putting a top-quality electronic fence around a supposedly derelict building would look suspicious in itself.”

“So we’re going to break in and look around?” Diana said, stressing the weto make sure that he understood that she had no intention of waiting in the car.

“If we can.”

“Suppose weget into trouble? Is anybody going to come looking for us? Will anyone know where to look?”

“It’s not that kind of deal, Di—but if we wereto vanish from human ken, the Old Lady would put two and two together. She’d tell Damon.”

“Damon? Not the police.”

“He’s the man who’s paying us—and one of the things he’s paying for is discretion.”

“What else have you found out?”

“Like I said,” Madoc retorted obstinately, “one of the things he’s paying for is discretion.”

“If he’d been discreet enough not to use my body in his porno-tapes, I wouldn’t be here,” Diana said, “but he did and I am. When he talked to me he said it was no big secret, but that was probably a lie. IsDamon really Conrad Helier, like the last notice said?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Madoc said. “I knew him when he was barely starting to shave and I nursed him practically day by day from his first fight to his last. Believe me, I’ve seen enough of him over the last ten years to know that he isn’t a hundred and thirty-seven years old trying to pass for twenty-six. He’s exactly what he appears to be—and that includes the fact that he’s Damon Hart and not Damon Helier anymore. If Operator one-oh-one wants some lunatic to take a shot at Damon, it’s not because anyone thinks he’s an enemy of mankind unworthy of immortality—it’s because Operator one-oh-one now thinks Damon may be dangerous to him. Maybe he knows that the Old Lady and I have been sniffing around—maybe he thinks that I’m getting too close for comfort.”

“If he thinks that,” Diana pointed out, suffering a sudden attack of logic, “we’re probably riding straight into a trap.”

“Do you want to get out?” Madoc asked. “If you do, better do it now. The badlands start at the end of the street.”

“I’m sticking to you like gantzing glue,” she told him stiffly. She didn’t believe what he’d said about the Operator getting spooked because he and the Old Lady had got too close. Neither did he—but he’d had to say something, to cover up the fact that he hadn’t the slightest idea why anyone would draw Damon into the game and then make a show of setting him up for target practice.

As they passed from the well-tended streets into an unreclaimed district Madoc slowed down slightly and checked for signs of pursuit—but when he found none he speeded up again. If Damon hadn’t sent an e-mail canceling the instruction that Madoc should meet him at the airport Madoc would have been in a quandary about whether to delay the adventure, but since Damon had decided to stay away for a while longer Madoc felt that the whole burden of action was on his shoulders, and that he had to press on as quickly as possible.

“I’m here because I care, you know,” Diana said defensively. “I walked out on Damon because he hurt me, but it was as much for his good as for mine—to make him see what’s happening to him. I still love him.”

“I’d never have guessed,” Madoc muttered, with savage irony.

“You don’t understand,” she said flatly.

“That’s a matter of opinion. I should have left you tied and gagged at my place. If I had any sense . . .”