Good God. Is that scramblingequipment? Where did they get this stuff?

Jack thought about sending a final message to Zachariah, or his parents, or his sisters, but not very hard. Much as he wished he could have explained his reasoning to them, he'd already decided he couldn't risk that. Security was going to be looking at all of them very closely, and their best protection was going to be the fact that he'd never said a single word to any of them about what he planned. Given Security's facilities, it wouldn't take very long to establish that none of them had had a clue or been involved in any way in his actions. And, despite the revulsion he'd come to feel for the Alignment and all it stood for, it did not punish people for someone else's actions. There'd be a stigma, of course, and they'd all be watched carefully, at least for a while, but no one would hold them responsible for what he had done. Sending them any final messages might undermine that immunity, however. Worse, it might start them thinking in the same direction he had, bring them onto the same collision path with the Alignment and everyone around them, and he simply couldn't risk that.

Especially not in light of what he was actually going to do now.

When Anton came back out of the kitchen, Victor still had everyone in the diner completely subdued. That included a new person whom Anton didn't recognize. She must have had the bad luck to walk in a short while ago.

It also included the man Anton had dragged out from under the table. He was kneeling not far from Victor, with his hands clasped behind his back.

Again, Anton grabbed him by the collar and hauled him to his feet. "You're coming with us, fella."

As he headed toward the rear exit, he heard Victor saying to the people held captive: "Here's how it is. We have associates standing guard outside both doors, front and back. Anyone who tries to leave within five minutes will be shot. No warning, no discussion, you will simply be dead. Once five minutes are up"—he pointed to the far wall—"according to that time display, you can leave the diner. Go anywhere you want. My own advice, take it or leave is, is that you'd be wise to pretend you were never here. This place has no recording or security equipment, except whatever these corpses brought with them, and we took care of that. So you can probably get away with it."

He started walking across the room toward the back exit. "Or you can report the incident to the authorities, who will certainly treat you with the respect traditionally given to seccies. It's your choice."

Half a minute later, he and Anton and the two women and their captive were in the escape passageway.

There, they stopped. Anton shoved the captive against the wall and stepped back. Victor stepped forward, the gun in his hand.

Lajos Irvine was petrified. He was about to die, and he knew it. There was no mercy at all in those black eyes and the gun hand was as steady as a bar of steel.

A few seconds passed. Maybe five, although it seemed like fifty.

"I'm just not positive," said the black-eyed man.

"It's your call," said the waiter.

The black-eyed man stepped back. "He needs to be out for at least four hours."

"Not a problem." The waiter came to stand right in front of Lajos. He looked as wide as the sea.

"I'd say this was going to hurt me more than it hurts you, but that'd be ridiculous."

The sledgehammer fist didn't hurt at all, oddly enough. Or, if did, Lajos could never remember.

From the beginning, Jack McBryde had realized that simply defecting wasn't enough—not in light of all he'd contributed to the Alignment first. That was the real reason he'd chosen to attack the Center's secure data network and every other computer system he could reach. There were backups, of course, but there was at least a chance of inflicting significant damage on the Alignment's most secure data systems, and that was definitely worth trying.

Only now he wasn't going to have that opportunity. There wasn't going to be enough time. Which meant there was only one way he could hope to take out a meaningful chunk of truly significant data, and since it was painfully clear to him that he wasn't going to be getting off Mesa after all . . .

He tapped a combination into his personal com. It was a one-time, untraceable combination—one he'd set up through his own security connections, even as he'd hoped he'd never need it. It buzzed only once, and then Herlander Simões's voice answered. McBryde could hear the tension in it, the recognition that he wouldn't have been calling on this combination unless something had gone seriously wrong.

"Yes?" Simões said.

"Eggshell," McBryde replied, and heard an audible inhalation as the emergency codeword registered.

"I—" Simões began, then stopped. There was the harsh sound of someone clearing his throat. "Understood. Thanks. I . . . won't forget."

"Good." McBryde wanted to say something more himself, but there wasn't time, and there wasn't much he could have said, anyway. Except—"Be well. Clear."

Feeling stunned, Herlander keyed off his com.

"What does that mean?" asked Yana.

"It means he's been . . . he's going to . . ." He burst into tears. "He's the only friend I have."

They were practically running down the passageway, now. Anton wasn't happy about that at all. First, it broke every rule of tradecraft. Secondly, there was a genuine risk of tripping over something in the dim light. And there were plenty of "somethings" to trip over, too. The floor of the passageway was littered with debris. Unlike some of these underground tunnels, this one was little-used. That was a good part of the reason they'd selected it, of course. But all they needed at this point was for someone to get injured in a fall.

They simply had no choice. The incident in the diner had not only delayed them, it had also made clear that something had gone wrong. What that something might be, they still had no idea. But whatever time they might have, it was running out.

Jack killed the circuit connecting him to Simões and began punching more keys. It was a long, complicated sequence this time—one carefully designed so that no one would ever enter it by accident—and he felt his stomach knotting with tension as the security fences went down, one by one, each seeking and demanding its own confirmation. He was probably the only person on the entire planet who had all of the required security codes, and even he wasn't supposed to have all of them. It was supposed to be a "two-man" rule situation, but McBryde had always recognized that if they were actually needed, there might not be time to get the designated "second man" online before it was too late.

I never realized how long this took, a corner of his mind thought distantly as he entered yet another in the queue of required commands and codes. If I had, I would have suggested streamlining things. How does anyone expect to have the time to go through all this rigmarole in a genuine emergency situation? It's stupid, that's what—

The mental sentence broke off in mid-thought as a boldly tattooed woman and three of her personal aides appeared in the field of view of the pickup he had focused on the Center's main entrance. He watched the uniformed sergeant springing to his feet as he recognized Isabel Bardasano and swore softly.

There's still time, he told himself.It takes a good six minutes to get to my office from there, even using the high-speed lift. And I think I can probably slow things down at least a bit . . .