"Sure. You don't mind if we follow you to this office where you say you made your last call?"

Gadgets dropped the cases and attacked.

Before the cases hit the floor, Gadgets's fist was striking into one solar plexus. His victim doubled over as Gadgets turned toward the other hardman who had started to claw for a weapon at the small of his back. He never managed to get the weapon out. Gadgets drove a foot into his crotch, then followed with a knuckle to the temple. The goon dropped in a dead heap. Gadgets returned his attention to the creep who was doubled up and fighting to breathe. He wrapped his arms around the goon's neck. A sudden tightening of the arms caused a gross cracking sound. The man let out a moan before he dropped to the floor.

Gadgets opened the door to the office where Pol and Ti waited.

"Help me clean up," he said.

Gadgets quickly gathered the tools from the one attache case that had popped open while Ti and Pol each dragged a body into the empty office.

"What happened?" Pol asked once they were inside the office.

"One of them was too sharp. He noticed I got off from an elevator that came from this floor. So, he brought his friend along and they were waiting for me when I doubled back up the stairs."

"How soon do you think they'll be missed?" Pol asked.

"Too soon. They have a good security system. I figure these two will be missed and people will start looking for them within half an hour. If they think we'll be out of the office at a definite time, they will probably wait until then to search here."

"Sounds reasonable," Pol agreed. "But if they come to the door, we all stand a high risk of being recognized."

"Speak for yourself," Ti told him. "I'm ninety-eight percent safe from recognition. To the sharp-eyed Westerner one Oriental looks like another."

"Don't count on it," Pol answered.

"If someone comes to that door, we have no choice but to count on it," she answered.

Pol opened the window and looked out. "This building looks like it was built in the thirties — ledges, funny carvings, stones on the corners, the whole works."

Gadgets hurried to the window. "Let me look."

He hung out the window for a couple of minutes. He brought his head back in. "I know what we'll do. We'll return the bodies."

Pol and Ti just stared at him.

"The window to the computer room is down two floors and over two sets of windows. If we lower someone on a rope, they can go along the ledge to the window. We break in and return their bodies. That gets rid of one problem. The..."

"That ledge is only decoration. It's only four inches wide," Pol interrupted. "No one could walk the thirty feet along that to the windows of the computer room."

"We both know someone who could," Gadgets replied. "And we both know she has the guts to do it."

Pol grinned. "And we both know how much you're aching to see Babette Pavlovski again, but there must be some way that we can handle it ourselves."

"There's dozens of ways we can handle this ourselves. The problem is to handle this and keep the cover on this operation at the same time. All our work is wasted if they find we've tapped into their computer."

Pol paced the floor for a few minutes without speaking.

He sighed. "You better call your lady to come up from L.A.," he told Gadgets.

Then he turned to Ti. "While he does that, I'll stack these bodies in the closet. Can you get that telephone and computer somewhere where it can't be seen from the door?"

She looked around the bare room.

"How about inside one of the boxes?"

"Let's do it. Time may be limited."

7

July 12, 1422 hours, Atlanta, Georgia

"Just feather stroke the trigger and let it up as quickly as possible," Lyons instructed. "These M-16s have only thirty rounds in a full magazine. It tosses them out the end of the barrel at the rate of eight hundred rounds per minute. Figure it out. That's only two and a quarter seconds of firepower. If you don't want to be killed while changing clips, make the ammunition last. You can kill an unarmed civilian with just one bullet, and if you line up children maybe you could make one bullet do for two."

The blonde who had been given Lyons as a partner, looked at him quizzically. She had treated him with barely suppressed contempt when showing him the basic stances of karate. She had found him an almost impossible pupil when it came to the etiquette of the dojo, but on the firing range it was different. This Carl Leggit — the name Lyons had chosen to go by — proved to be a better shot than the instructors. Quickly he was made a gun instructor and his karate partner was his first pupil.

"Okay, Deborah, try it again," Lyons told her.

"What's this crack about children?" she demanded.

"Who the hell do you think you'll be killing? Trained combat infantry? Armed riot squads? Hell no! If it can shoot back, stay away. We're terrorists now. We shoot only those who can't defend themselves."

Deborah Devine, a platinum blonde with warm blue eyes, shuddered and moved a little farther from Lyons.

One of the white belts appeared in the firing range in his gi. He ran down the line of trainees. "Everyone change and get back into the dojo right away," he called. "Every-one change into giand go back to the dojo right away."

Ten minutes later, Lyons was standing in the dojo, lined up behind Deborah. This was the way of Nogi's dojo. Every pupil above white belt was assigned to help at least one pupil of a lower rank. So by grouping instructors and students the lines formed naturally, black belts closest to Nogi, the browns next to the blacks they were assigned to, the blues standing close to the brown belts who were responsible for them. This order filled the back ranks with white belts. Deborah wore a blue belt and was the only one not assigned one or two greens. Instead she had Lyons in his white belt to follow her around.

Lyons still did not know what Deborah had done to cause Nogi's displeasure. Although she was intelligent and attractive, Nogi seemed to take great delight in humiliating her.

When Nogi entered everyone bowed. Lyons was glad to bow and keep his grin toward the floor — he knew he had struck gold. A wide, ugly Japanese woman followed Nogi into the dojo. She wore a well-used giand white belt. Her hair was pulled together and tied, like a samurai's of two centuries ago. Everything about her shouted her deadliness. This could only be the female terrorist leader whom Lao Ti had described.

Lyons knew that the white belt was not worn because the woman was a beginner at karate. It was traditional for a karatekawho was visiting another dojo and did not wish to usurp the authority of those who were running it, to wear a white belt.

Nogi did not have to hold up his arms to gain attention. A karate senseialways has his students' attention. Nogi had only to begin speaking.

"Aya Jishin does us the honor to visit us again. Most of you do not need to be told who she is, but for the new recruits I will say that she is the very capable commander of all the Harassment Initiation Teams. She brings us another chance to strike out against those who have taken your jobs away from you."

No one cheered. No one smiled. Everyone simply transferred attention to the ugly woman.

Lyons's attention almost wandered as her monotonous hoarse voice reminded people of how they had been victimized by automation. He listened more attentively when she got down to the specifics of the operation.

"We attacked Elwood Electronic Industries four days ago, killing many of the enemies of the worker. However, the biggest enemy, Lao Ti, escaped. Tomorrow we will go back and find her and execute her in the name of the millions of unemployed."