CONGRATULATIONS

The National Association for Recreational Skiing is pleased to

advise you

LILA SIMMS

that through a computer-operated lottery of high school students throughout the country, you have been chosen as one of five winners of the prize listed below.

A one-week, all-expense-paid skiing holiday at Hightower Mountain in the Adirondacks.

No purchase necessary. This is a final and unconditional prize. See other side for details.

"It's one of those lottery things, that's all," said Violet. "There ought to be a law."

"I don't think so, gran. I think it's for real."

"No, honey, it's one of those things where you have to buy something to win."

"It says no purchase necessary." Lila came around the table to stand in back of her grandmother. "Look, right there."

"Oh. Well, you know how they work these things. They put your name in with a zillion others, and they have a drawing maybe a year from now."

"No, look. 'This is a final and unconditional prize.' " Lila turned the page over, and pointed. "The week starts on Saturday."

"This Saturday? That's only three days…" Violet peered at the print on the back of the page. "Supervised by a trained ski instructor provided by the NARS-transportation by bus-accommodations at the Holiday Inn at Hightower." She searched for flaws, but could find none. Still, she protested, "There has to be a catch. Nobody ever wins these things."

"Somebody has to, otherwise it wouldn't be legal, would it?"

Violet said doubtfully, "I suppose. But why would they pick you?"

"It says random selection. A computer did it."

There it was, the magic word for this generation. If a computer did it, then it had to be real. "But what's this National Association… or whatever? I never heard of it."

"Oh, I have," said Lila, who never had heard of it, either. "It's very big, the biggest. I can go, Gran, can't I? It's Hightower. It's supposed to be fantastic skiing there."

"I can't let you go off with people I don't know."

"It says trained supervision, and there are four other kids. Please, Gran. Please?"

Violet shook her head, not so much in disapproval as in resignation. Raising a grandchild all on her own had been both a joy and a cross to bear, and the next few years would bring the worst of it. She tried to remember what her own daughter, Lila's mother, had been like at sixteen, what she had wanted and needed, but all she could recall was a time of total confusion. She spoiled Lila somewhat, she knew she did, but this-to send her off with strangers? Still, a week, all expenses paid, and she did love skiing so much.

"Gran, please?"

Violet shook herself briskly. "We'll see, we'll talk about it later. I have to think about it."

"But we don't have much time."

"Time enough to think. We'll talk this afternoon, after school." She glanced at the clock. "And you'd better scoot, or you'll be late."

Lila gathered her coat and her books. She kissed her grandmother's cheek, and hugged her shoulders. "Please think about it," she pleaded. "Please think real hard."

"I will, I promise." Violet looked up, and smiled. "We'll see." Lila nodded happily. She knew her grandmother, she knew that smile, and she knew that she was going to Hightower Mountain.

About an hour after Lila raced off to school, Martha marched into Sammy's office at the Center. She was just back from two whirlwind days in Rockhill, New York, on the Simms assignment. She threw her report on Sammy's desk, and waited while he read it.

Sammy:

Here's what I have so far on the Sextant operation.

Rockhill is a small town in the Hudson Valley, the east bank just north of Rhinebeck. It's a pleasant place, quiet, with shady streets, and a high school straight out of a 1930's movie. Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland, you know? The sidewalks are clean, there's no graffiti, and aside from a bowling alley and a roadhouse out on the edge of town, the lights go out at eleven. I wouldn't mind living in Rockhill someday.

I spent my first day there using my cover as a field agent for the New York State Department of Social Services, researching crimes of violence in the area. I hit the chief of police, the high school principal, a couple of pastors, and came away with the impression that Rockhill is virtually free of serious crime. Sure, once in a while a teenage party gets out of hand, once in a while the buckos out at Jimmy's Grill, the local roadhouse, take on a load and start bopping each other, once in a while a kid gets himself busted for smoking pot on the village green-but that's about it. Again, I wouldn't mind living there.

I spent the next morning at the hall of records. Lila Simms was born 11 June 1976. Mother listed as Julia Simms, died in childbirth. Father listed as "unknown." Lila's residence, 29A Linden Avenue, Rockhill, is listed as being owned by Mrs. Violet Simms, who turns out to be the kid's maternal grandmother. Tax valuation $57,500. Real estate and water taxes paid up to date. No mortgage, no outstanding liens. Lila has lived with her grandmother all her life.

Late in the afternoon I got close enough to Lila to do an Alpha tap. Couldn't get her to stay still long enough for a Delta, but we're not interested in anything deep. Turns out to be a perfectly normal sixteen-year-old, into rock music, tennis, and skiing. Likes boys, dates around, but nothing steady. Deep attached to her grandmother, and no memories of her parents, which isn't surprising since she never knew them. Worried about her school grades, but not to the point of panic. Somewhat bored with her life, somewhat restless, somewhat curious about the big wide world out there, but that's nothing unusual. She is also, believe it or not, exactly what Ogden was looking for, a certified virgin.

So there's your background, and here's the problem. My brief is to keep this child from being raped within the time frame, but my brief also specifies that she cannot know what is going on. Nor can anyone else connected with her. This, my dear Sammy, is a virtual impossibility. Given the limitations of our mandate, I see no way in which we can protect Lila Simms unless-and this is my point-we remove her from her present environment.

Thus:

(1) Sextant will come after her in Rockhill.

(2) Given our limits, there is no way that we can protect her in Rockhill.

(3) We have to remove her from Rockhill, and place her in an environment that we can control.

(4) How do we do that, and at the same time preserve the limitations of our mandate?

(5) Turn page for the answer.

Sammy turned the page and found himself looking at a duplicate of the notification to Lila Sims, advising her that she had won a week's vacation at Hightower Mountain. He read it carefully, then looked up, and smiled.

"Not bad. Fast work."

"The Workshop did it. We were up all night. I haven't been to sleep yet."

"When will Lila get it?"

"She got it this morning." When Sammy raised an eyebrow, she added, "Jerry Becker in Postal took care of it. He owes us."

"You're close to a breach of security there."

"Sometimes you have to bend the mandate. I had to get it to her today. Sextant's time frame begins in four days, and I want her out of there in three. Of course, I'll be leading the party."

"You'll need transport."

"The Workshop is organizing a minivan."

"Rooms at the inn?"

"All the logistics will be locked up by this afternoon. There's just one other point that I have to clear with you."

"Yeah, I see it coming." Sammy sat back, and his smile was gone. "You need four teenage kids to fill out the group."

"Four kids who can ski. Four seniors I can trust all the way down the line. I want George Shackley, Pam Costis, Linda Bryce, and Terry Krazewski."