The gunner collapsed. The pilot panicked and rushed for the cockpit. Corbin gunned him down.

"Nice," I said. "How do we fly it out of here?"

Corbin grinned and kicked the door open. "The Beast has wings," he said. "Unless, of course, you don't want my help."

I sighed and followed him through onto the helipad. A cold winter breeze blew the smell of the fire up to us. Coolers, vents, and nameless clutter tangled below the landing platform. An orange circle and cross of cracked and curling paint marked the center of the pad.

"Let me guess," I said. "You learned to fly in `Nam."

His fleshy face grimaced as if he'd smelled rotten eggs. "Hardly. I was a merc in Afghanistan, fighting the real Commie menace. I didn't waste my time with orchestrated `police actions.'"

I nodded impatiently. Ann was having trouble with an intoxicated adolescent. I trotted back to render assistance.

"I'm afraid of flying!" Isadora hollered.

"We'll be getting a lot higher than this!" I shouted back. "You should be more afraid of what's down below."

She took a drunken swing at me, missed, and collapsed in my arms. That simplified things. Ann strapped her in.

"Can this crate carry five?" I asked.

Corbin stripped the dead pilot of his radio headset. "Probably. Who've you got in mind?" He strapped into the pilot's seat and fired up the engine.

I grabbed the gunner's helmet and squeezed into his vacant seat. Corbin showed me where to plug into the intercom.

The copter rose a few inches and dropped down the west side of the hotel. Gunning it, he lurched us away from Old Downtown at a stomach-convoluting speed.

"Can you sneak us over to Hollywood?" I asked.

"Hollywood? Sure."

"Great. And watch out for low-flying broomsticks."

Corbin flew nerve-jarringly low, more to avoid radar than brooms. Not that every cop between Old Downtown and Hollywood didn't notice us. If they'd been informed, though, to let the attackers on Auberge get away, then we were relatively safe. Unless they had to do something for the TV crews.

We reached Hollywood in a couple of minutes. Corbin told me how to release the ladder. He also informed me that I was the obvious choice to shinny down.

I shinnied.

Bridget stood in front of her store, staring up in bewildered shock, fists on hips. The propwash swirled street dust and trash around her maroon kaftan.

"What the hell are you up to?" she shouted.

"Time to go!" I shouted back. My feet were planted firmly on the bottom rung. I had a death-grip on the ropes.

"You're a week early!"

"Situations," I yelled, "have forced my hand!"

Bridget threw her arms up in exasperation, turning to walk back into her store. I thought I'd lost her until she reappeared carrying a purple paisley carpetbag.

Kasmira followed her to the ladder, where they conferred for a moment. She kissed her grandmother and gave her a firm, long hug. Bridget returned the kiss.

I despise long good-byes, especially when I'm hanging from a stolen assault vehicle. I jumped from the ladder to take the bag from the old crone's hand. She looked at me, then at the ladder dangling above us. She nodded and turned to give Kasmira a final hug.

I hefted her up to the lower rungs. Corbin dropped the copter another foot or so to accommodate her.

Bridget dug her heels into my shoulders for support. With a grunt of effort she climbed up to hook one foot around the bottom rung. I joined her on the ladder and put an arm around her waist. She pried it off.

"I don't need your help, sonny!"

Sonny? I could tolerate a lot of insults, but that one stung.

She spidered her way up with remarkably unsenile speed. Ann lifted her inside. I reached the top, nearly lost her carpetbag tossing it in, and followed it.

"Haul up the ladder," Corbin's voice buzzed in my earphones. "And tell me where we're going."

"Claremont. The StratoDyne launch site."

"Ten-four."

He punched the engines to full throttle, leaving my stomach somewhere on Hollywood Boulevard.

"I still want to know why you came so early," Bridget said, straining to be heard over the rotor's increased noise.

Isadora recovered from her stupor enough to say, "It's a psychological problem men his age have. Premature evacuation."

Bridget turned toward the child with a sardonic smile. "You're the one, aren't you?" She looked toward Ann for a reply. Ann nodded. The old woman looked back to the kid. "You are an unbelievably powerful broadcasting telepath, child." She patted the kid's head tenderly.

I was surprised she didn't bite the old gal's hand off. Instead, she merely looked out the cockpit, saw where we were, and threw up in an empty ammo box.

Bridget took a handkerchief from a pocket in her kaftan and proceeded to clean the child up.

Corbin flew us low over the hills to Sierra Madre, where he doglegged east toward Claremont. Behind us, the smoke from Auberge reached high into the afternoon sky, a black exclamation point at the end of a jarring surprise. Corbin dropped us to treetop level, and it fell from sight. Another drop delivered us into a canyon that widened to become the StratoDyne complex.

The shuttle stood erect on its launch pad, a shimmering white bird gripping four rust-red boosters.

Corbin set the copter down with a couple of uneasy bumps. Ann and Bridget dragged Isadora out.

"Have a nice flight," he said in a grudging voice. "I hope God doesn't do a Job on you."

"Where are you going?" I asked loudly.

"Are you kidding?" He patted the Huey's controls. "This baby and its weapons stores will fetch a high enough price that the Church of St. Judas will be riding high for years. Months, if I really enjoy myself." He waved at me jauntily with a free hand, folding his second and third fingers down to form the Horns of Androcles-an ancient witches' symbol of good luck.

I tossed the headset inside and sealed the hatch. The copter rose swiftly from its pillar of dust to rotate about and race east toward the national forest-and the desert beyond.

"Impossible," the launch director said. "You can't launch tonight." He was older than I was, balding and soft from too much desk work in bureaucratic surroundings. He leaned back in his console chair to stare at me.

All I needed that moment was a battle of wills. I stared back at him and leaned threateningly forward. I still carried the M-16.

"I don't pay you to say things are impossible."

"That's a good line," he said. "Let me write that down." He picked up a doughnut and bit a hunk out of it, washing it down with a swig of beer.

I leaned farther. The butt of the rifle thudded against the desktop.

"Starfinder is ready. Canfield told me so as I walked in. All you've been doing for the past two days has been flight simulations."

He leaned forward, face-to-face with me. "Listen, Mr. Del Taco, or whatever your name is. I don't think I like what I was hired to do here. There's an awful lot of rumors circulating that you have something to do with that crazy ad campaign. You may not understand this, but to get where you're going requires a specific launch window. I may be helping you accomplish some sort of twisted publicity stunt, but I'm not going to jeopardize my career by doing it clumsily!" He finished the doughnut and returned to his semirecline. "We couldn't possibly consider a flight before calculating a new launch window. There might be one around five or six this morning."

"That's fine for you," I said, taking the beer from his hand and tossing it into the wastebasket. "We, on the other hand, are being trailed by some annoyingly rude characters. The same ones who pureed Old Downtown a couple hours ago. Do you want to be around here running simulations when they show up?"