“Sir?” said Myda, but he was walking away,

Darrah went back into his office and dropped into the chair. Jekko is dead.The image was burned in his mind. A good, trustworthy man with a keen wit, the kind of man you wanted guarding your back, cold and dead in some Cardassian morgue. His fist bunched and he slammed it on his desk, knocking over the cup.

“Boss.” Proka was at the door, holding it open. “We got a problem?”

For a second, Darrah considered sending him away, but then he beckoned him in. “Come here, Mig, and close that behind you.”

Proka did as he was told. “I saw the look on your face. You know the man.”

“Like he was family.” Darrah’s voice caught. “I can’t believe it. He always seemed fireproof, always surviving the worst through basic training and out on the street…”

“He was one of us?”

A nod. “He was my partner when we were Watchmen.” A pained smile crossed his lips. “He would always joke and rub the scars under his stubble. ‘I’m too vulgar to die,’ he would say. ‘Prophets won’t take a man as crude as me for fear of dirtying the Celestial Temple.’ He said that’s why they kept him alive.” Darrah’s expression hardened. “And now he’s dead, shot for breaking into a Cardassian enclave.”

“They said he was trying to plant a bomb.”

“That’s shit!” Darrah was on his feet, enraged. “Jekko Tybe is not a terrorist! I’ve known the man for twenty years, on my mother’s grave I’d swear that!”

“Jekko?” Proka repeated. “I know that name. Didn’t he run Keeve Falor’s security before the minister went to Valo?” He shook his head. “Boss, when the Cardies find that out, they’ll sing it from the rooftops. They’ve already got a shuttle on the way down from orbit with a sweep squad aboard.”

Darrah stared at the pictures of the women who had fled. “I don’t know these two.” A decision formed in his mind. “Get me anything you can on them. If anyone is going to know what happened to him, they will.”

“If the Cardassians find them first, they’ll be gone like they never existed.”

He nodded grimly, his mind racing, the grief and anger at his friend’s death put aside as he fell into the familiar mode of investigation. “Myda’s right, if they’re running, they’ll run to Korto.”

Proka returned the nod. “I could make Jekko’s files get lost for a while.”

“Do that,” he ordered, working the computer on his desk. “I think I might know where they’re going. Keeve Falor still owns some interests on Bajor, and one of them is a storage hangar out at the port.” He turned the screen so Proka could read it. “There’s a ship there right now.”

“You think that’s their escape route?” The constable frowned. “You’re making a bit of a leap there, boss.” He studied the monitor. “The Kaska,a light courier…”

Darrah grabbed his holster and strapped it on. “Kaska was the name of Tybe’s mother.” He made for the door and felt Proka’s hand on his shoulder.

“You sure you want to get in the middle of this? The Cardies will shoot first and not even bother with questions later.”

“My friend is dead,” he growled, “and I don’t know about you, Migdal, but I’m sick of letting the Cardassians get what they want.”

Tima climbed out of the airtruck’s cab and took a breath of the dockland air. She could hear the gentle slosh of the river beyond the warehouses, and the night was pleasantly cooler down here, more so than the heights of the hill district. She thought about Bennek, angry and troubled after his conversation with Vedek Gar. Tima was shocked by the Bajoran priest’s words to her lover, and in turn she saw how much they had affected Bennek. He should have been with them now, helping Tima and the others to pick up the supplies to replace those lost in the firebombing; instead he was in a skimmer racing back to the encampment, withdrawn and sullen. She knew his moods; it was best to let him be alone with his brooding, let him take his own time.

Urad, the thin youth who had been driving the airtruck, stepped out with her. Three more Oralians followed behind. “Couldn’t we have just come back in the morning?” He seemed to enjoy complaining about everything, his gray hands flapping like birds in front of him. “Why do we have to get the food now?”

Tima glanced at him as three figures in hooded docker’s coveralls emerged from the storehouse. “So that the children will not awaken tomorrow and be told that there is no food for their breakfast. We can go back, if you’d like to be the one to tell them and their parents.”

Urad grumbled under his breath and stepped forward to meet the dockers, pulling back the sleeves of his robes. “Let’s get this done quickly, then,” he said, nodding to the hooded men. “Hello. Vedek Gar sent us to—”

The dockworker on the right brought up his fist, and there was a gun in it. Yellow light flashed, illuminating the area all around them, and Urad was thrown back by the force of the blast, rebounding off the airtruck.

“Oralian filth,” spat a voice. “You’re poisoning Bajor! Get off our planet!”

Tima screamed as more streaks of fire lashed out, each of the men panning beam weapons back and forth across the thermoconcrete dock. Two more of her fellow Oralians were hit, the Cardassians dropping into heaps, wisps of sweet-smelling smoke curling from ragged tears in their pastel robes. She grabbed at the front of the vehicle, fingers scrambling over the surface toward the door. Tima saw one of Urad’s friends clawing his way into the cab; then a bolt of the sun ripped into her and she spun away, crashing to the ground.

Life ebbed from her in pulses. Dimly, she was aware of the airtruck humming to life, jetting away under the hand of a panicked driver. The hooded men came closer, and one aimed at the fleeing vehicle.

The one who had fired first shook his head. “No,” he said. “We need a witness. Let him run.”

The other man nodded and raised his wrist to his lips, speaking into a device there. “Reporting,” he said. “Assignment complete.”

Blood bubbled in Tima’s throat and she spat it out in a reflexive cough.

“This one’s still alive,” said the third.

The man who had fired first knelt by her side, bringing his face close to hers. In the moonlight, she saw not the smooth lines and ridged nose of a Bajoran but the deep-set eyes and lined flesh of a Cardassian countenance. Her eyes widened in surprise.

He reached for her, and Tima’s world ended.

“Preliminary identity sweep has been completed, sir.” Glinn Orloc raised his voice to speak over the hum of the cutter’s impulse engines. “Nothing on the male as yet, but you were correct about the women. Hetman Foroe gave a positive identification of them as his passengers. Customs logs from Traffic Control list them as Nechen Alla and Jonor Wenna, agricultural technicians from a settlement in Hedrikspool province.”

“Doubtless those are cover identities.” Dukat nodded.

“Anything else?”

Orloc continued. “We’ve intercepted a report from the City Watch. A skimmer with two females on board entered Korto from the plainslands at high speed, refusing to follow traffic codes.”

“The Bajorans have been given a suitable pretext for the alert?”

“Yes, Gul. The fugitives have been classed as terrorist suspects.”

“Good. Inform the men to employ whatever level of force is required, but make sure they know I want the women alive.”

Orloc saluted and Dukat looked away. Outside, below the cutter’s hull, the sprawl of Korto’s metropolis glowed against the dark of Bajor’s landscape.

Nechayev ditched the vehicle near a public park and hauled Jones onto the first tram they could find. She changed direction twice before taking the route to the starport, all the time working hard to maintain her outward air of calm and control while her heart was hammering against the inside of her rib cage. Jones was muted, the bandage and the antishock drugs from the skimmer’s medical kit turning her into a pale ghost of her normal self. The lateness of the hour worked in their favor; there were fewer people around, so Nechayev had a better view of who might or might not be following them. They avoided Militia patrols and groups of Cardassians who seemed to be out on the town. It was only three hours since they had left Jekko behind, and yet it felt like forever, a drawn-out night without hope of a dawn.