Zorro kept close to the heels of Doc's worn and cracked knee boots, his belly flat to the floor, head low as though it knew that things were tough and getting tougher.

Ryan Cawdor and his H&K G-12 assault rifle, with its fifty-round mag of special 4.7 mm bullets, waited together for the final assault of the Russian sec men.

It was still cold inside the big house, despite the hard spring sun outside. Ryan sat on the landing, ready to bolt for the steps to the attic. He waited and listened, trying to detect the change in the noise of the engines that would indicate the vehicles were about to stop. Then there would be the clatter of opening doors, the thud of boots on the veranda and the splintering of wood as the door was smashed in.

If Ryan fired the blaster on full-automatic the mag would last about one and a half seconds. Great for wiping out a room packed with enemies. Not so great for trying to deter a mass of men charging a staircase. Triple-burst would do that job more effectively.

The engines slowed and the wag doors banged open. Ryan put his finger on the trigger and took several deep, slow breaths, hoping that Gregori Zimyanin would be the first Russian to appear in the center of his sights.

Zimyanin was out the door of the autowag and flat against the front wall of the dacha ahead of any of the slower, clumsier sec men. He beckoned them urgently to attack the main entrance and smash it in.

As they poured through the door, Zimyanin was at their heels, bunking at the sudden darkness. But there was enough illumination coming through shattered windows and skewed shutters for him to immediately see the room at the rear of the building, with its jumble of wrecked corpses.

It took a handful of seconds to establish that the first floor had been abandoned by the Americans.

"Up the stairs!" Zimyanin roared, unaware that his lips had peeled back off his teeth in a hideous grin of blood rage.

Ryan had positioned himself with great care, so that he was in almost total darkness, within two short paces of the steps to the ruined floor above. He had a perfect eye-line down the wide corridor to the top of the staircase.

There was just enough room for three sec men at a time to come up onto the landing. Ryan took a chance and waited until he saw nine of them, herded nervously together, looking around. They were unable to spot him in the dim light.

He squeezed the trigger of the G-12 four times, spraying the opposition with twelve rounds.

Instant carnage.

Zimyanin, poised at the bottom of the stairs, caught the sound of the muffled blaster and glanced into the darkness of the second story. He hesitated a moment, then leaped backward, down into the hall once more. He narrowly avoided the cascade of bullet-riddled, bloodied corpses. Ryan hadn't bothered to try for a clean kill on any of the sec men, realizing that the effects of the spraying rounds would be devastating.

Gut-shot men screamed in agony, pulling down others in their shock and pain. Blood gushed from a dozen wounds, making the smooth wooden steps as slippery as ice.

It was like a madman's charnel house. Only a couple of the sec men were chilled outright by the four bursts of triple-fire. But at least fifteen others were hit with varying degrees of severity, some rounds penetrating clean through flesh and muscle, then ripping into the man behind.

Zimyanin bit his lip in frustrated anger, trying to avoid the kicking, fighting, panicked tangle of men. A sudden cold terror gripped him, that somehow the Americans were going to pull off some magical vanishing trick and avoid him. Blinded by that fear, he clambered over the dead, dying and injured, his high boots slithering in a soup of blood and brains, snapping bones in his desperate desire to get at Ryan Cawdor.

If it hadn't been for the Russian's paranoid desire to capture or kill, Ryan would have been able to buy them all a little more time.

But Zimyanin, for all his muscular bulk, was very fast. He reached the second-floor hallway just in time to spot Ryan disappearing up the rickety steps into the attic, silhouetted against the sun that burst through the exposed beams and rafters. The Russian even managed to snap off a shot from his Makarov, missing the fleeing American by less than a foot.

"Come on, you lazy bastard dogs!" he screamed at the disorganized rabble of sec men behind him. "Come on, after me!" His voice cracked in his lust to pursue his prey.

Ryan picked his way between the joists to the door that J.B. had left slightly ajar for him. He slid through and slammed it firmly shut, vanishing into the central stone chimney of the dacha. He then ran down the steep, endless spiral staircase to join the others.

Zimyanin reached the attic five seconds too late to see the door close, but his keen ears heard the sound of its shutting. His eyes pierced the dappled patterns of light, immediately spotting that the whole vast roof void was empty. There was nowhere for the American to have hidden.

Nowhere except...

"The chimney."

Ryan found the others gathered around the dying freezie, all with blasters drawn and ready. Rick looked up as he heard Ryan's running feet on the stairs, clattering through the main control room. "Hi, man," he whispered. "You made it."

"Yeah. Don't know how long it'll take them to break through up there. Not long. Guess it's time to go."

"Can you... open the cans? Then I'll take a few with me."

"You're sure you want it this way, Rick?" Krysty asked.

"Isn't any other... other way."

"Okay. Jak, can you?.."

"Sure, Ryan." The teenager stooped to unscrew the cans of gasoline, his white hair tumbling over his red eyes.

"One other thing." Rick coughed.

"What?" They were all conscious of a faint and distant hammering noise above them. Rick also heard it.

"Know time's racing. Sounds silly but... the flag. Like to hear The Star-Spangled Bannerone more time. Just once. Then in the gateway you... and away. If you could manage?.."

Jak broke the silence in the room. "Don't know it. Sorry, bro."

"Me neither," J. B. said.

Ryan looked at Krysty. "How about you, lover? I only know the last bit."

The woman sighed. "Uncle Tyas McCann tried to make me learn it in Harmony ville. I said what was the point? I'd never need it. Gaia, Rick, I'm so sorry."

The freezie managed to shake his head. "Don't worry. You... better move. No goodbyes. Just..."

Doc Tanner cleared his throat noisily, bringing all eyes to him. The banging sound from the top of the stairs seemed louder.

"I fear that my voice is not of the best," he said. "But I'll gladly give the old anthem a try."

Chapter Thirty-Nine

O say can you see by the dawn's early light,

What so proudly we hail'd at the twilight's last gleaming,

Doc Tanner's voice started light and nervous, barely audible. Slowly it began to gather volume and richness. Rick held the pyrotab in his right hand, the shaking fingers of his left gripping the hem of the scorched flag. His lips moved silently in unison with the old man's singing.

Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous night,

O'er the ramparts we watch'd were so gallantly streaming?

Powerful and moving, the thrilling words filled the small, low-ceilinged room. Krysty found herself suddenly on the brink of helpless tears. Rick lay pale and sickly among his only friends, a single tear easing from the corner of his right eye. Doc was unashamedly weeping as he sang the old song of patriotism.

And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air,