He got a firm grip on the pipe with his left hand, then extricated his right hand from the crevice, stretched up, and hooked his right hand higher on the pipe. His legs swung off the ledge, now dangling in space. He repeated this move twice more, sliding his left hand forward, reaching higher with his right, until finally his fingertips found the open edge of the fencing room's eaves trough. On the forward third of his fingertips, he chinned himself up to the roofline, then hooked a foot onto the trough and levered himself up. He dropped flat on the cedar shingles and lay still for a few moments.

Grimsdottir's voice came into his ear: "Fisher, I've managed to untangle Legard's wireless Internet signal. They had some decent firewalls up; took me more time than I'd anticipated."

"And?"

"And every computer but one looks like a dedicated security workstation. Personal computer on the fourth floor, last room in the northeast corner. My guess: It's either Legard's bedroom or office. You get me a hard link to it, and I'll hack in."

"Consider it done. I'll get back to you."

Fisher pushed himself up into a crouch and crab-walked to the windows. The windows, which from below had appeared vertical, were actually sloped inward. Fisher slipped the latch of the nearest window and opened it an inch.

Twenty feet below, under the glare of the halogen lights, he could see Legard, now without his face mask, moving down the line of dummies, thrusting, lunging, and spinning, dispatching each with a death blow before moving on to the next.

Legard was a handsome man, with long, flowing black hair, chiseled cheekbones, and a lantern jaw. He looked ten years younger than his actual age of fifty. After he'd dispatched the last dummy with a lunging strike to the throat, Legard strolled back through the gauntlet, his foil tucked under his arm, a broad grin on his face.

"What do you say, Bruno, eh? Am I not a joy to watch?"

The guard, now sitting up straight, said, "Yes, boss, amazing stuff."

Still smiling, Legard removed his gauntlets and tossed them at Bruno. "Someday you'll see the beauty in it, my friend. Your senses have been blunted by our product, yes? All those fresh, pretty things . . . hard to concentrate on what really counts in life."

"True, boss."

"How's our guest getting along?"

"Full of complaints, that one."

Guest?Fisher thought. Carmen Hayes?

"He's a pampered scientist, Bruno, a lab rat. What do you expect?"

Not Carmen.

"It would be nice if he stopped whining. I called Baie Comeau. They're loading him aboard in a few minutes. He's been curled up in a corner, whimpering all night."

Baie Comeau,Fisher thought. Grimsdottir's briefing had listed Baie Comeau, one of Legard's port warehouses along the St. Lawrence. Clearly they were loading someone aboard one of Legard's ships. But bound for where, and to whom?>

"We'll be rid of him soon enough. Go get me some water, will you?"

Bruno got up and stepped through the door.

Fisher didn't hesitate. He drew his pistol, set the selector to DART 1, then opened the window another two inches. Legard was standing at the far wall, practicing his fencing poses before the mirror. Fisher took aim and fired. The dart struck true, plunging into the nape of Legard's neck. He gave a faint gasp, staggered forward a couple steps, arms flailing as he looked for something to latch on to, then crumpled, sliding down the mirror to the floor.

Fisher holstered the pistol, swung the window all the way open, hooked the Monkey Claw on the sill, then let the wire drop to the floor and followed it. With a quick whip of the wire he freed the Monkey Claw, then wrapped it up, restored it, and sprinted to the mirrored wall where Legard lay. The switch panel beside the door controlled the lights, he assumed. He flipped all four switches. The room went black. He pressed himself to the wall, flipped down his goggles, and switched to NV. He drew a lead-and-leather sap from his belt and waited, eyes on the door.

Ten seconds later, he heard the knob turn. The door swung open, casting a skewed rectangle of yellow light on the maple floor. Bruno's shadow moved forward, followed by Bruno himself as he crossed the threshold.

"Boss? Hey, boss, are you--"

Fisher was up and moving. Right arm cocked, he took two quick steps toward Bruno, then flicked his wrist. The lead and leather sap impacted just below Bruno's ear with a dull thud. Bruno collapsed, and the water bottle he'd brought for Legard rolled across the floor. Fisher caught Bruno's body, dragged him out of the light, and laid him down. He drew the pistol and waited. Five seconds, ten, then thirty. No shouts of alarm. Fisher crept to the door and peeked around it; the hall was clear. He swung the door shut and locked it.

He holstered his pistol and turned back to Legard.

Time to have a chat with our white slaver.

12

FISHER'SSC pistol had a variety of dart selections, ranging from low to high in anesthetic dosage. Level three would keep a 180-pound man unconscious for ninety minutes; level two, half that; level one, fifteen to twenty minutes. Legard, whom Fisher assumed weighed nearly two hundred pounds, would take around ten minutes.

He was two minutes off. Eight minutes after Fisher darted him, Legard groaned, lifted his head from his chest, and shook it. He blinked his eyes a few times, then opened them and looked around. Fisher had propped him against the mirror with one of the padded dummies behind his back, his hands bound behind his back by a plastic flexicuff. Bruno, who had gotten a level two dart after he went down, was similarly bound, save one addition: a gag made of his own socks.

Now, crouched a few feet away from Legard, Fisher studied the crime lord in the gray-green glow of his NV goggles. The room was pitch-black, except for what little pale moonlight made its way through the upper windows. The rest of Legard's training dummies stood like frozen sentinels down the center of the room, multiplied by the mirrors on both walls.

Legard cleared his throat, then spoke: "What's . . . what's going on? Bruno, are you there? Bruno!"

"Keep your voice down," Fisher whispered. "Raise it again, and I'll put a bullet in your knee. Nod if you understand."

Legard nodded.

"Bruno's taking a nap. You and I need to have a chat."

"Who the hell are you? Don't you--"

"Know who you are? Of course I know who you are, Mr. Legard." People like Legard were predictable. First the indignation, then the threats, then the propositioning. "And just to save time, yes, I know what a mistake this is, invading your home; and yes, I know what you'll do to me if you catch me; and, no, I don't want any money to let you go. Did I miss anything?"

"You're a dead man."

"We've already been through that," Fisher whispered. "Time to move on."

"You can go fu--"

Fisher jammed the barrel of the pistol against the sole of Legard's foot. "Be nice, or you'll be fondling your foil from a wheelchair. Understood?"

"Yes, I understand."

"Okay, here's how it's going to work: I'm going to ask you some questions. I'm a decent judge of character. Now, just because I'm also a nice guy, I'm going to give you two free lies. After that, I'm going to start hurting you. Are you ready?"

"Yeah . . ." Legard grumbled, clearly not yet a believer.

"Tell me about a woman named Carmen Hayes."

"Who?"

"Brunette, late thirties, scientific type. Not the typical blond-haired runaway you sell. She was snatched off the streets of Montreal four months ago."