Well, the old Swiss was selling out, and when he saw the disappointment on Bittie's face, he relented and let him have it, with a box thrown in, all engraved, repolished and ready to go.

When given a card to put the message on so it could be copied, Bittie fell into more difficulty. What was he going to put on the back of the locket? Jonnie and others had told him that he and Pattie were far too young to get married and that was true. So he couldn't put “To my future wife” really, for people might smile and this was no smiling matter. He didn't want to simply put “To Pattie Love Bittie" as the old Swiss seemed to be suggesting. The Russian was no help at all. Then he had it! “To Pattie my ladye faire, Bittie.” The old Swiss then said that was too long to fit on the back. So he had to come back, after all, to “To Pattie, my future wife.” The old Swiss counted that up and said he could fit that in. It wasn't too satisfactory and people might laugh, but he couldn't do any better and the old Swiss set up his engraving machine and had at it.

All this was taking time and Bittie was getting edgy. He might miss the Russians, and after all Jonnie's horses were his job as squire and that's why he had come over to America. He hopped from one foot to the other and pushed at them all to hurry. The Swiss finally finished and put the locket in a nice box and wrapped it in some old paper, and the Russian finally got all the things he wanted and they paid it all up and went rushing out to get back to the trucks.

It was a cold day. There had been a frost and dead leaves were blowing about. A storm was rumbling over the mountains. It all seemed to tell Bittie to hurry.

But when they got back to the trucks, the position of the sun, seen through

scudding cloud, said it was only noon. There were no Russians returned.

The guard got into the driver's seat of their cab and began to sort out the presents he had bought. Bittie, almost engulfed by the huge Psychlo passenger seat, closed the window against the chill wind and dead flying leaves and sat there impatiently twiddling his new riding crop and looking out the window, his eyes just above the level of the bottom, keeping watch for the rest of the Russians.

From where he sat he could see a side entrance to the capital building. There was a big executive ground car sitting there with blacked-out windows.

Suddenly he saw Sir Jonnie! There he was, dressed as usual in buckskin, unmistakable. He walked out of the side entrance of the capital. The door of the executive ground car was swung open from inside and Jonnie got into it.

Bittie scrambled to get down the window and shout. He got it open partway. He couldn't get it all the way down.

Then somebody else came out of the capital, somebody dressed like a cadet. A plaster cast around his neck. This second person stopped and called back into the capital stairway where somebody must have asked a question.

The man in cadet clothes yelled back, “He's just going down to the compound first to pick up his horses.” Then he too got into the ground car and it started up.

Bittie was wild! He hadn't been able to get the window down and call to Sir Jonnie. Get the horses! That was why he was here, what he'd come all the way to America to do!

He tried to get his guard to just start up the truck and follow. But Bittie's command of Russian was not up to it. Gestures and motions and repeating the sense of what he was saying got no place. This Russian was not about to go after that executive ground car. He was here to wait for the rest of the contingent.

But Bittie got him out of the cab and they went sprinting around looking for the rest of the Russians. Minutes went by and they couldn't find them. This ruined city was too big, too spread out, too filled with rubble.

Suddenly they spotted one Russian. He was walking along the edge of a park by himself, eating some nuts he had bought. He was a man named Amir, and he had no reputation for being quick in the wits, although he was a nice fellow.

Bittie reeled off the situation to him, using gestures and a Russian word he did know, "Skahryehyee!" meaning “Hurry up!” and trying to get the man to understand he was to find the others and tell them to come along right away.

He was not at all sure the man got it for he looked blank, but the action was enough to convince Dmitri that it was now all right to follow the ground car so they got back to the truck and the Russian started it up, and they went roaring out of the city to catch up to the vehicle Bittie had seen Jonnie enter.

Lars Thorenson had taken every precaution. He had gone over it very carefully. If there was no public display of arms and guards, while making sure that this Tyler was thoroughly covered at all times by adequate weaponry, then no alert would go out and no misguided friends of this felon would come pouring around to rescue him.

Lars had left guards in the car, had let no other Brigantes appear on the streets or openly in corridors, had sent word to the commando now posted at the compound to keep out of sight but ready and not to shoot unless attacked.

He had a little surprise for this Tyler at the compound, but all should go smoothly and well. He thought even Hitler would have approved of the tactical skills Lars was displaying.

They would pick up the horses, drive up through the pass to the meadow, order this Tyler to go into his own house, and that would be that. The scourge and menace to the stability of the state would be ended. Thoroughly and with no blame at all to the Council.

The day had gone gray. The sun was more and more overcast. The wind was picking up and billows of dust and clouds of dead grass were running before the approaching storm.

Lars' driving was not all that good to begin with and gusts were buffeting the ground car, swerving it from already badly chosen courses. He was not driving fast.

Jonnie was considering his chances. He had no idea they intended to let him out of this alive for all their smooth assurances. What point of that plaster cast, if hit, would finished the job of breaking this traitor's neck? How familiar were these two evil-smelling Brigantes with a Thompson submachine gun?

The weapon, deadly though it was, had been obsolete for a century at the time of the Psychlo attack. It fired pistol ammunition that was too heavy for a hand-held automatic weapon and caused it to kick upward furiously so that you had to hold the muzzle down with great force. These weapons they had were not equipped with "Cutts Compensators” that used some of the muzzle blast to help hold down the upward kick. They were loaded with sixty-shot drums and the springs of those drums were often weak and failed to feed. A certain percentage of the very ancient ammunition failed to fire and one had to know the trick of recocking rapidly to keep the gun shooting on automatic. Jonnie knew these things for he had fired a lot of practice rounds with them when Angus had first dug them out of the old camion where they had lain through the ages, protected by heavy grease and airtight ammunition packaging. But did the Brigantes? Probably they had fired a few rounds with them, the first firing of powder missile weapons they had ever done in their lives. The improbable and rapidly discarded ploy had occurred to him to talk to them about the weapon and then take one to explain a fine point and blow their foul matted heads off.

Unless he thought of something, this was going to be his last ride. It was in Lars' manner. It was in the looks the Brigantes gave him. They were very, very confident.

The compound appeared in the distance ahead of them. There was some stock scattered about in the plains. Lars narrowly avoided a group of buffalo, dodged a scrub tree, nearly dumped them in a gully, jolted them over some boulders anyone who could drive would have avoided, and finally halted about a hundred feet short of the beginning of the rise that ended in the plateau near the cage.