“Oh, really?”

“Oh, really.” I paused, then added, “If you want any good news, though, it looks like they’re taking prisoners. They just nailed our friend Skippy down there.”

“Very good. I hope they find a nice little cell for him.” Richard’s fingers were tapping nonstop at the keyboard; his face, backlighted by the faint blue glow of the computer screen, was taut with concentration. “Won’t do us much good, though, I’m afraid. If they get us now, they’ll put us away where the sun doesn’t shine. They won’t let-”

The rest was submerged beneath the roar of one of the helicopters coming in for another low pass.

I looked through the window again, just in time to peer directly into the canopy of the Apache as it slowed down to hover less than fifty feet from my window. For a moment I thought it was going to attack; the gunner had a clean line of fire through the windows for the chopper’s 30-mm chain gun. Through the nightscope, I could see the pilot and copilot; the helicopter was so close that, if the window had been open, I could have taken a rock and bounced it off the armored glass.

But the chain gun didn’t move on its mount beneath the cockpit. Instead, the TADS/PNVS turret mounted at the chopper’s nose rotated toward the tower. As I watched, the man in the rear seat looked my way. He grinned broadly, raised his left hand, and pointed his forefinger straight at me: you see me, I see you.

I pointed back at him, he nodded his head, then the chopper lifted away once again and sailed away over the trees. “We have met the enemy,” I said once the noise subsided, “and he’s a smartass.”

“Why don’t they just rush the tower?” Morgan muttered. He was still cowering next to the wall, his arms wrapped around himself as if they would protect him from caseless 34-mm shells. “If they’ve got us surrounded, why don’t they …?”

“Because they’re probably unsure how many people are in here.” Payson-Smith’s voice was emotionless, as matter-of-fact as if he was discussing a moot intellectual point. “After all, we’re the renegade mad scientists out to blow up the world. For all they know, we’ve got an entire army holed up in here. Only an idiot would mount a frontal assault if he didn’t know what the odds were, now would-”

“But we don’t have an army!” I snapped at him, frustrated by his objectivity. “We don’t got so much as a spit wad and a rubber band, and that Apache’s carrying tank busters!”

Tappa-tappa-tappa-tappa. “You don’t say?” said Herr von Frankenstein.

He was too cool to be insane. Something was going on over there.

I scurried across the deck and knelt down next to where he was sitting. The search-and-retrieve program had vanished from the screen, replaced by long lines of LISP program code I couldn’t read.

“I’m explaining things to Ruby,” Richard said. “She knows a little of what’s going on, but she needs a little human intuition right now.” He glanced over his shoulder at me. “We’re working on something, but we need some time. If you’ve got any ideas how to-”

“You! Up in the water tower! Listen up!”

An amplified male voice through a megaphone from somewhere down below. Payson-Smith’s hands froze above the keyboard as we both raised our heads.

“This is the Emergency Relief Agency …”

“Now there’s an oxymoron if I ever heard one,” Richard said dryly.

“You’re completely surrounded! We know you know this! If you surrender immediately, you will be arrested but nothing else will happen to you!”

“Right.” Payson-Smith bent over his keyboard again and continued writing cybernetic cabala.

“You have two minutes to obey our orders! Come out with your hands above your heads, or we will be forced to use force!”

“Oh, my!” he exclaimed. “He sounds rather forceful, doesn’t he?” He shook his head. “Typical-”

“Goddammit, Dick, you can’t let ’em do this!” Jeff Morgan scrambled across the floor toward us. “C’mon, it’s not that important! Just … let’s just give up and let ’em take us downtown. If we cooperate-”

“Shut up, Jeff.” Payson-Smith shot a dire look at him; Morgan fell silent again, and Richard glanced back at me. “I need another few minutes here,” he went on. “As I was saying, if you’ve got any ideas how to hold them off …”

In that instant, I remembered the last ace I had up my sleeve. It was a long shot, but … “You got a phone up here?”

“Jeff, give him the phone, please,” Richard said, “then stop whining and get behind the other ’puter. I need you to do something.”

Morgan’s face reddened. He looked at me querulously as I rolled over on my side, pulled out my wallet, and searched through a stack of dog-eared business cards until I found the one I had forgotten up until now. God, if I had lost it …

No, it was still here: the phonecard George Barris had given me at the Stadium, little more than twenty-four hours ago. “Phone!” I snapped. “Hurry up!”

Morgan dug into his windbreaker and pulled out a pocket phone. I snatched it out of his hand, snapped it open, and ran the card’s codestrip across its scanner. Holding the receiver against my ear, I heard a faint buzzing. The second buzz was interrupted halfway through by a calm, familiar voice:

“Redbird Leader.”

Barris.

I took a deep breath. “Colonel Barris, this is Gerry Rosen. Remember me?”

A brief pause. “Of course, Gerry. I’ve been waiting to hear from you.”

“I’m sure you have,” I replied, trying to keep my voice easy. “Just wanted to give you a little how-do, see what’s on your mind-”

“Just a moment, please.” A click, then a moment of silence as I was put on hold. The bastard was probably trying to have the call traced. The phone clicked again, and Barris came back on the line. “I’m sorry, Gerry, but I’m a little tied up just now. If you’d care to let me know where I can reach you, I’ll-”

“Sure thing, Colonel,” I said. “I’m in the Compton Hill water tower. There’s about a dozen of your boys surrounding me, so I’m kinda busy myself … you still want to call me back?”

I heard a sharp intake of breath.

“I thought you’d be interested,” I went on. “Look, you asked me to call you if I happened to find Dr. Payson-Smith or Dr. Morgan. Well, here they are. I’ve lived up to my side of the bargain. What about yours?”

“Mr. Rosen,” he replied evenly, “I appreciate your assistance. If you surrender yourself to my men, I promise that you’ll be treated well-”

“The same way you treated Beryl Hinckley this afternoon?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Gerry, but I can assure you-”

I heard Richard snap his fingers; looking around, I saw him hastily gesturing for the phone. “Well, Colonel,” I interrupted, “I’d love to discuss this further, but I think Dick here wants a few words with you.”

I handed the phone to Payson-Smith; he cupped it between his chin and shoulder. “Colonel Barris?” he said, his hands still racing across the keyboard. “Yes, this is Richard Payson-Smith. How do you do …?”

A long pause. “Well, the offer is quite flattering, but I’m afraid I cannot trust you … no, no, that’s out of the question-”

The Apache buzzed the tower again. I picked up the nightscope, crawled across the floor to an eastern window close to where the two scientists were seated, and peered out. More troopers had taken up positions on the crumbling limestone stairway just below the reservoir wall, while the Cayuse continued to hover above the reservoir itself.

“Let me make you a counterproposal instead,” Richard went on. “If you’ll withdraw your men and the helicopters immediately and allow us to leave the reservoir, I promise you that no one will be harmed.”

What the hell?

I glanced over my shoulder at Payson-Smith. He now held the phone in his right hand, his left forefinger idly tapping the edge of the Apple. Jeff Morgan was no longer in a blind panic; he had quietly settled down in front of the Compaq and was now quickly entering commands on its keyboard.