As he moved toward the double door that would let him out into the tangled forest, the window at which he had been standing mere moments before imploded with a deafening roar. One of the tiny helicopters had shot it out. While Damon and Singh were still ducking away from the blast, arms raised against flying shards, two objects flew through the broken window. As they bounced across the carpet they began pumping out smoke.

Thanks to his misspent youth, Damon was able to recognize the objects and the belching smoke. He knew that he hadn’t time to get through both the doors that stood between him and fresh air—but the elevator door was still wide open, less than three meters away. Singh was already headed for it, without even bothering to come to his feet.

Damon couldn’t beat the dark-skinned man to the open door but he managed a tie. He couldn’t pull the other man back but he hauled him to his feet so that he could reach out a slender finger and punch the button that would close the door behind them.

They had beaten the smoke, although a little of its stench lingered in the trapped air as the elevator began its descent.

Damon still had hold of Singh, and he shoved him up against the back wall of the elevator before pressing the barrel of the darter to his neck. “Don’t ever threaten me again, Mr. Singh,” he growled theatrically. “I really don’t like it.”

“I’m s-sorry,” the slender man gasped, desperate to spit the words out. “I only wanted. . . .”

“I knowwhat you wanted,” Damon said, releasing his hold and lifting his hand reflexively to his face, as if to shield his nose and mouth from the few smoke particles that had accompanied them into the elevator. “You’d already toldme what you wanted.”

Singh breathed a deep sigh of relief as he realized that no further violence would be done to him, and that he had achieved his object in spite of all the difficulties. Damon didn’t want him relaxing too much, so he made a show of pointing the gun at him.

“You’re not out of the woods yet,” he said grimly. “If there’s anything I don’t like waiting for us down below, you could still end up with a belly full of needles.”

“It’s all right,” the thin man said quickly. “There’s nothing down below but a safe place to hide. I haven’t lied to you, Mr. Hart! I just had to get you down below, before you were hurt.”

Now that there was time to make the play, Damon pointed the gun at his companion’s face and tried to make his own expression as fearsome as he could. “Who are you reallyworking for?” he demanded.

“Karol Kachellek,” the other said plaintively, with tiny tears at the corners of his frightened eyes. “It’s all true! I swear it. You’ll see in a minute! You’ll . . .”

The agitated stream of words died with the elevator light. The descent stopped with an abrupt lurch.

“Oh shit!” Damon murmured reflexively. This was a development he had not expected. He had assumed—as Singh clearly had—that once the elevator doors had closed they were safe from all pursuit.

“It’s impossible,” Singh croaked, although it clearly wasn’t.

“Is there anyone down below at all?” Damon asked, abruptly revising his opinion as to the desirability of finding a reception committee awaiting his arrival.

“No,” said Singh. “It’s just . . .”

“A safe place to hide,” Damon finished for him. “Apparently, it isn’t.”

“But the systems are secure! They’re supposed to be tamperproof!”

“They might have been tamperproof when they were put in,” Damon pointed out, belatedly realizing the obvious, “but this is the age of rampant nanotechnology. PicoCon’s current products can get into nooks and crannies nobody would even have noticed twenty years ago. They got to Silas, remember—this is mere child’s play to people who could do that. The only question worth asking is how they knew I was here—if it isme they’ve come for. If they have a ship, it must have been here or hereabouts before Grayson took off from Molokai.”

The lights came back on again, and the elevator lurched into motion. Unfortunately, it began to rise. Damon immediately began to regret the delay caused by his stubborn perversity. If he’d only come into the elevator when Singh had first invited him, they’d surely have been able to get all the way to the bottom before his pursuers could stop them. Whether that would have qualified as safety or not he couldn’t tell, but he was certain that he was anything butsafe now.

Rajuder Singh must have reached the same conclusion, but he didn’t bother to complain, or even to say “I told you so.”

Damon ostentatiously turned the gun away from Rajuder Singh, pointing it at what would soon be the open space left by the sliding door. He knew that the room would still be filled with poisonous smoke, and that anyone who had got to the console in the middle of the room in order to send a return signal to the elevator would have to be wearing a gas mask, but that didn’t mean that they’d be armored against darts. One shot might be enough, if only he could see a target—and even the larger helicopter which had followed the two miniatures couldn’t have been carrying more than a couple of men. If he could hold his breath long enough, there might still be a chance of getting outside and into the welcoming jungle. It was a one in a million chance, but a chance nevertheless.

“They must have been waiting,” he muttered to Rajuder Singh. “But they couldn’t have known what Karol would do, even if they figured that I’d fly to Molokai. They must have been here because they were keeping watch on you, waiting to take action against you.”

“That’s impossible,” Rajuder Singh said again. “I’m just support staff.”

“But you’re sitting on a secret hidey-hole,” Damon pointed out. “Maybe there isn’t anything down there to interest them—but they don’t know that. Maybe they really do think that Conrad Helier’s there, directing Karol’s operation. Maybe this was always part of their plan, and my presence here is just an unfortunate coincidence. Maybe they don’t give a damn about you orme, and only want access to the bunker. . . .”

Damon could have gone on. His imagination hadn’t even come near to the limit of its inventiveness—but he didn’t have time.

The elevator stopped again, although the lights stayed on this time.

Bitter experience had told Damon to take a long deep breath, and that was what he did. As the doors began to open, before the gas could flood in, he filled his lungs to capacity. Then he threw himself out into the smoky room, diving and rolling as he did so but keeping his stinging eyes wide open while he searched for a target to shoot at.

There was no target waiting; the room was devoid of human presence.

His ill-formed plan was to get to the doors that led outside, and get through them with all possible expedition. He managed to make it to the inner door easily enough and brought himself upright without difficulty—but the door was locked tight. He seized the grip and hauled with all his might, but it wouldn’t budge. He was fairly certain that Singh hadn’t locked it, and he knew that it wouldn’t matter whether the thin man was carrying a swipecard capable of releasing the lock. There wouldn’t have been time, even if the other had been right behind him—which he wasn’t.

Damon immediately turned for the window, even though he knew full well that it wouldn’t be easy to exit past the jagged shards of glass that still clung to the frame. His long stride carried him across the room with the least possible delay, but his eyes wouldn’t stay open any longer and his nose was stinging too. By the time he reached the window he felt that he couldn’t hold on any longer—but he knew that there was fresh air outside.

Damon grasped the window frame with his free hand, steadying himself as he let out his breath explosively. Then he stuck his head out into the open, in the hope of gathering in a double lungful of untainted air, while the hand that held the gun groped for a resting place on the outer sill.