"Let's go!" I shouted to Ann. The throbbing sound around the library grew louder as we threw on our clothes. I grabbed my Colt from beneath a pile of abstracts and pounded down the stairs, Ann seizing her handbag and following inches behind.

Something whumped against the side of the building. The subsequent concussion knocked us against the wall.

"Ecclesia!" I yelled in answer to a look from Ann. We scrambled over scattered books and shattered bookcases toward the northern exit.

Instead of the door, though, we clambered out of one of the windows-I figured the bushes outside would serve as cover.

Six unmarked blue Hughes Cayuse helicopters roared over Old Downtown like movie Indians around a wagon train. The tenement capping Auberge flared savagely-a blazing funeral pyre. Thick columns of smoke rose overhead, chopped apart by the copters' propwash. The crowds pouring from the Auberge exits were greeted by machinegun and air-cannon fire.

One of the air-cannon rounds burst a section of the hill away to reveal the crumbling interior of the Auberge Hilton. Bodies lay sickeningly still inside the ruins.

A chopper roared above us, too swift for it to have seen us. It closed in on Bunker Hill. From somewhere within Auberge, the defense systems were retaliating.

Fifteen-millimeter machine guns opened fire on the aircraft. A couple of brave souls crawled to the surface armed with TOW missiles.

"Can't they use their interruptors?" Ann asked.

"Not enough range for the power. Too strong a field would knock out everyone on the fringes." I edged toward the west end of the building, Ann's hand in mine, keeping behind the bushes.

A thunderous explosion shook through us. I looked past Auberge to see the Union Bank building lose its top thirty stories. I had a feeling my office wouldn't be in great shape after that. The chopper that fired the missile landed atop the Bonaventure Hotel to hide from the action below.

"Where are the police?" Ann shouted over the battle's roar. "The army?"

One of the copters disintegrated in midair. The guard who fired the killing shot jumped up triumphantly, only to be blown from his perch by a cannon round from another attacker. His body whirled and danced through the air before tumbling down Bunker Hill and out of sight.

"Why should the cops or the feds get involved?" I said, looking down Fifth Street for a safe escape route. "They figure anyone in Auberge is a criminal of some sort. It'll give them an excuse to crack down on all the undergrounds."

Another copter fell flaming into the World Trade Center.

"Someone high up may even have approved the attack. They'll call it a gangland massacre."

"Dell-over there."

I turned to see pickup trucks racing toward Auberge, the beds loaded with scores of young men-healthy, well-armed, and fit for a new crusade, another jihad.

The Hueys drew back to safety as the boys stormed the hills, firing at anything that moved.

"It touches my heart," I said, "to see how the world's different faiths can work together for a change."

Ann grabbed my arm with painful tightness. "Where's Isadora?"

"I don't know," I said. I was concentrating on the truck pulling up to the library.

"Go sensitive and find her."

"Go what?"

Ann crouched down to where I was peering out at the truck. "You can do it," she whispered. "Just calm yourself and concentrate lightly on her image. Conjure her up in your mind."

"Calm myself? During this?" I felt like a kid on stage with a hypnotist. I wanted it to work. I wanted everything to go fine, even though I knew it wouldn't. I tried as hard as I could to believe that it would work while inside me I felt it was impossible.

"The column of mirrors," I said as if I'd just remembered it.

"See? You're getting something."

I glanced back at the troops leaping out of the truck. Something shook the earth. I stared up in bewilderment as a sleek black Learjet screamed over the library, two Vulcan machine gun pods under its wings chattering like the Fourth of July.

The Lear knocked two of the remaining three copters out of the sky. The third turned to escape, the jet pursuing in an uncontested race. Twin Vulcans blazed for an instant. The Huey's pilot bubble shattered. An instant later, the machine wheeled about, twisting crazily toward the Music Center. It crumpled into the Second Street overpass and hung there unburning-a dragonfly pinned to a rail.

The jet vanished to the northwest. I watched it depart, glancing at the fires of Auberge reflected in the mirrored windows of the Bonaventure.

"She's in the hotel." I whispered.

"Let's go."

I shook my head and pointed toward the young troops. "Wait until they're inside."

It didn't take long. They rushed the building at a dead run, whooping and screaming like a phalanx of John Waynes.

I led her through the bushes to where the walkway turned to block us. We paralleled the steps and hotfooted it into the parking lot, using what weeds grew there for cover. I kept my automatic ready.

The Auberge guards, in control of the high ground, seemed to be turning back the assault. The Wells Fargo building blocked our view as we ran past. We crossed Flower toward the hotel entrance.

Two kids sped around a corner, saw us, and whipped their rifles up to aim. They were too slow. I had already dropped to a kneeling, twohanded shooting stance. Ann crouched behind me. I had a sneaking suspicion she was fumbling for her knife.

I sighted in on the boy to my left-a sandy-haired teenager who looked like the lead in a high school production of The Idiot. The other-a lanky Panarabian-divided his aim between my head and Ann's.

"Neither of you wants to shoot us!" I yelled. "One of you will be dead before I drop!"

"Th-that w-would just mean one m-more soul for Y-Yahveh," the sandy one said. He stuttered like a motorboat, and it wasn't from fear: the hands holding his rifle never wavered.

"One more soul for Allah," the darker boy corrected.

Sandy glanced at the Panarab.

A wisp of smoke from the burning complex drifted between us. It carried a smell of things dead and dying. The Panarabian kid paid it no mind. He'd probably been raised during the Pax Israelia ten years before.

Sandy wrinkled his nose. I took a chance.

"Allah or Yahveh. Which God will get your soul? Which God is supreme?" I split my aim between the two without dropping my guard.

"Allah," said the dark one.

"Yahveh," insisted the light one.

Something whooshed through the air behind me.

"Knock it off with the shiv," I hissed.

Ann muttered something and stopped waving the blade around. The two boys didn't even notice. They were involved in a theological discussion.

"Yahveh."

"Allah."

They glowered, slowly turning their rifles toward each other.

"Allah," the Panarabian said with a low growl.

"Yahveh," Sandy Hair retorted, racking the action on his M-16.

"Kali!" a voice screamed from the nearby underpass.

The boys spun about to look toward the source of the sound. Had they lived long enough, each would have seen a bullet hit him in the chest. Two rifles clattered to the pavement. Two young men followed them shortly.

I jumped up, gave Ann a shove in the direction of the Bonaventure, and commandeered one of the rifles. I sped up to match Ann's athletic pace.

Footsteps raced behind me. I whipped about, a .45 in one hand and an M-16 in the other.

"Tough guy," a gravelly voice rumbled. "Can't even plug a couple of punk kids."

Randolph Corbin trotted his hulk up beside me, one thick hand grasping a Springfield M-1A. The other hand clutched at his belly. His pug face was distorted from breathing as if it were the latest fad. His brown turtleneck shirt and tan slacks appeared to have been redesigned by a chainsaw. Soot stained his clothes, hands, and face. The seat of his pants had been badly singed.