“Something’s wrong!” Frik yelled.

“How about telling us something we don’t know,” Keene said.

The smoking piece twisted and took off, hurtling across the room to shatter against the far wall.

Frik and McKendry hurried over to check out the fragments. McKendry, who had been closest to them, got there first.

“Nice work, Van Alman,” Keene said, his tone verging on a snarl. “You must’ve put it together wrong.”

“I couldn’t have,” Frik said. “The way they’re shaped, there’s only one way those pieces can interlock. I—”

“Face it, man,” Keene said, keeping up the pressure. “You blew it. Whatever you did triggered an eject button.”

“More like are ject button,” McKendry said, picking up a handful of fragments. “This piece was bogus, guys. The device spat it out.”

“Peta!” Frik said, doing his best to ball his good fist within the heavy glove and pounding it on the table. “Damn her! She gave me a fake! When she gets here—”

“Watch out!” Ray’s gaze had been fixed on the device. “It’s up to something!”

They all watched as the device began to glow and a blue light enveloped it and its stand. The glow brightened and seemed to thicken—not a term Ray would normally apply to light, but the best he could come up with at the moment—and obscure the device within it.

Suddenly a beam of bright blue shot out, thick as a man’s wrist and laser focused. It barely missed Keene’s head as it lanced toward a spot on the wall just to the left of the door. Keene stared at it a moment before stepping through into the great room. “Get in here, guys. You’vegot to see this.”

Ray led the way but stopped dead in the doorway when he saw what Keene was talking about. McKendry plowed into his back, propelling him into the room.

The beam of light had pierced the wall without damaging it—no hole, no burn marks. As far the beam was concerned, the wall didn’t seem to exist. It traveled with undiminished brightness across the great room, through the outer wall, and into the night.

“Look,” McKendry said, pointing. “It’s moving, almost as if it’s tracking something.”

At that moment Ray became aware of a pulsating thrum.

“Do you hear that?” Frik said.

Ray nodded. He knew the sound. “That,” he said, “would be Peta’s helicopter heading this way.”

42

“There it is,” Peta said, pointing through the helicopter’s bubble window.

Arthur grinned. “You’re sure?” He sat to her left at the helm of the sprightly little Chief-8, his right hand firm on the stick. He winked at her. “It’s so hard to tell Ray’s casino from the others.”

The wink said it all. Even among the gallimaufry of brightly lit, high-concept, high-rise casinos lining the Las Vegas Strip, ferro-concrete behemoths in drag watching the endless parade of tourists, Ray’s wedged-shaped Daredevil Casino stood out. Maybe it was its shape, apex aimed like a spearhead at the sidewalk. Or maybe it was the space shuttle that appeared to be launching from the right side. Or perhaps it was the realistic Godzilla-like creature, with animatronic head and arms, bursting through the left wall.

She noticed a crowd beginning to gather around the monster and glanced at her watch; almost half past eleven. Ray’s stuntmen-cum-actors must be about to begin their assault on the giant fire-breathing lizard.

“Anything wrong?” The flight had been glide smooth until a moment ago, when she’d noticed a little pitch and roll.

“Some strange updrafts around the casino.”

The Daredevil’s rooftop helipad loomed before them. Peta dug into her shoulder bag. She found what she was looking for but didn’t remove it. “I want you to see something before we land,” she said. “I didn’t want to be the only one in on the secret.”

“Maybe it should wait till after we land.” Arthur kept his eyes straight ahead.

“I really think you’ll want to see this now.”

She opened her hand and held the piece up where he wouldn’t have to turn his head too far to see it. After a quick first glance he stiffened and took another look.

“What in the world?”

“It’s my piece, the one you gave me.”

“But I thought—”

“I had Ralphie make a phony—and he did a masterful job. That’s what I gave Frik.”

“So he thinks he’s got three but he’s only got two. I love it! Doesn’t Ray know—?”

“Uh-uh. At the time I wasn’t quite sure about Ray. I mean, whether or not he had something to do with your, um, death, or if he and Frikkie were in cahoots. So I didn’t tell him. I’ve learned the truth, but I haven’t exactly had time to call him.”

“So you and I will be the only ones who know.” He grinned. “How do you want to work it? We can let them assemble it with the fake, and when nothing happens, pull out the real things and say, ‘See if this works better.’ Or we can—”

The interior of the cabin filled with a bright blue light. The helicopter dipped. Arthur fought the stick.

“Oh, God!” Peta cried. The light had centered on the piece in her hand, but it was coming from outside. When she looked through the window, she could follow a tightly focused beam straight back to Ray’s penthouse atop the casino. “What are they trying to do to us?”

She saw four figures rush out onto the helipad. The one she recognized as Ray began waving at her. Was he warning her off or telling her to hurry in?

The chopper was bucking like a wild stallion. Arthur forced it into a stuttering descent toward the helipad. “It’s that thing, that piece you’ve got there. Somehow it’s set off something below that’s affecting the controls.”

“Should I toss it out?” Peta said.

“Hell no! We’re notout of control, just having some difficulty is all.”

“How much difficulty?”

A tight grin. “Oh, I’d say something akin to flying through a Midwest supercell.”

“With or without tornadoes?”

“Without. But that could change any moment.” He glanced at her. “Look. An actual touchdown might be too dicey with these controls the way they are. But I can get low enough so that you can toss the piece onto the pad.”

“And then what?”

“Then we see what happens. If I get the helm back, we’ll land. If not, we’ll fly off and look for a place in the desert to put down. Either way, we’ll know the piece will be safe with Ray until we make it back to the casino.”

“Bring her down as low as you can,” Peta said. “These pieces seem to be indestructible, but let’s not take any chances.”

Arthur fought the Chief-8 downward. When the landing runners wobbled between eight and ten feet above the helipad, Peta pushed her door open. Noise and wind swirled through the cabin. Looking below, she saw Ray, Keene, and McKendry backed against the wall of the penthouse.

Frik stood at the edge of the landing circle, where the tornadic downwash whipped his hair and clothing. Peta saw his face, his tight, angry posture. He knows, she thought. He must have tried to assemble the device with the fake piece.

Was that why the chopper was acting crazy?

She cataloged her options. Fast. The way she did during emergency surgery. She could toss out the real fragment, surrendering it to Frik, or keep it in the chopper and risk a crash. Or—

“Hold her steady!” She unclasped her seat harness.

“What are you doing?”

She tucked her piece of the device into her bra. The beam followed it, making her chest glow with the same eerie blue light. “See you below,” she said.

Swiveling onto her belly, she slipped her legs through the door.

“Peta!” Arthur shouted, panic wild in his face. “Get back in here! You’ll break your neck!”

Feeling nothing except the need to take action, Peta continued her outward slide. The vortex from the whirling blades tore at her skirt, whipping it above her knees. She wished she’d worn jeans—she’d have a better view of her feet. Inching down, she kicked back and forth until her boots found the landing runner. She hooked her heels on the steel tubing, reached down and grabbed it with her left hand, then her right. Finally she kicked her feet free and swung down to hang with her boot soles only three or four feet above the helipad. She was about to release her grip when the chopper suddenly veered up and away from the roof.