Vickers normally hated the damn things. He considered them as so much shuck and jive. The benefits were minimal and he was certain that confessions made in these booths were taped and filed for future use. In his current situation, a booth, with its spherical, dark-blue plastic bubble, would be an ideal place to keep out of sight until the plane left. The bubble was almost opaque when a customer was inside and the lights were down. He ducked into the nearest one and slid the door closed. The door catch activated the computer.

"How would you like to pay?"

"Cash."

Vickers could have sworn that the flat, synthetic voice sounded disgusted.

"I have no facility for handling cash. The only machines capable of handling cash in this location are at the far end of the line, nearest to the book stall."

Vickers hurried down the row of blue spheres. Fortunately, the one at the end was empty. He fed a ten dollar bill into a slot and stretched out on the plastic recliner. The lights dimmed and the computer became electronically soothing.

"Why don't you describe the anxieties that you are experiencing."

"Every time I get into one of these things I have an overwhelming urge to blow up the machine and myself with it. The only thing that's consistently saved me is that I've never had any explosives with me."

"How long have you been experiencing these hostilities?"

"Since I was weaned."

"Go on."

"Listen, would you please just leave me alone? I ducked in here to stay out of the way until my plane boards."

"Why are you so fearful? Why don't you tell me about the things that scare you."

Vickers sat up straight, aware that he was getting mad with a machine. The knowledge only made him madder.

"I'm a professional assassin with a price on my head and my picture's been splashed all over TV. I've got a right to be scared."

The only advantage of a cash-operated machine was that, if there really was someone recording the session, without a credit card there was no record of his identity.

The 1009 eased its bulk into level flight, and the warning lights went out. The passengers started to relax. Back in smoking they were turning the air blue. Vickers flicked on the tiny TV screen in the back panel on the seat in front of him. The cabin attendants were breaking out the booze carts. The woman next to him was looking around as though she needed a drink. He read her as an out-of-towner who thought that she was cute and slick but had altogether overdone it. The elaborate ringlet coif was draped too heavily onto her right shoulder. The neckline of the black, tailored exec suit plunged just a little too deep. The skirt was fractionally too tight and the slit up the side was fractionally too long, or maybe she just intended to have a good time in Las Vegas. Vickers had given her a look of polite interest when she'd first sat down but there'd been no response and from then on he'd minded his own business.

Amjet prided itself on being a sensible airline. Apart from cramming its cabin attendants, man and women alike, into ludicrously brief shorts and halters, it had resisted the trend toward increasing the in-flight fun. It had no swing flights with people fucking in every toilet, no dip movies, no lasers and no audio pressure. All you got on Amjet was food, booze and seat television. Vickers flicked channels on the TV until he got to what looked like newsreel tape of ragged, wild-eyed soldiers ravaging some bleak, snowbound steppe village. It was undoubtedly supposed to be Russia. He slipped on the headphones. Sure enough, a smug commentary was describing how breakaway units of the disintegrating and half-starved Red Army were preying on the civilian population of the eastern Soviet Union but all the time moving west toward richer European picking. The commentator's concern over the human suffering involved was thoroughly swamped by his obvious glee at how this was final proof of the failure of the Marxist system. The woman next to him was pointing her index finger at the screen. The nail polish was black with a tiny red dragon decal on each finger. Vickers hadn't seen such attention to detail in a long time. Maybe she really did want to have a good time in Las Vegas. He pulled off the headphones.

"I'm sorry, were you speaking to me?"

"They mass produce those things in northern Canada. All that Russian atrocity stuff. I work for KJHJY back in Trenton. We buy it by the mile."

"Should you be telling me this?"

"Sure, why not? Nobody believes what they see on TV. They know anything goes. All the news shows use simufilm. The corps are too cheap to send crews all over the world. Mind you, I doubt you'd be able to find a cameraman willing to point a lens at the Red Army. I figure we're probably doing the Reds a favor. The real thing's probably ten times worse."

"You sound cynical."

"Sure I'm cynical, I'm going for a weekend in Vegas on my own."

Vickers took another look at her. She was running just a tad toward overblown but there was somthing quite attractive about the severe way she kept it in check. Vickers smiled despite the fact that he didn't feel in any condition for conversation. The arrival of the booze cart gave him a little more time to put off the effort. The woman ordered a martini and Vickers asked for a scotch. She half raised her glass.

"Are you on vacation?"

Vickers shook his head. "Just looking for a change of scene." He realized that he'd delayed too long in the matter of assuming an identity. He didn't know who he was and what he did. He could see that, at any moment, she'd be asking him exactly those questions. Already she had halfway confided in him and was certainly looking for some kind of reciprocation. He got in with the first question.

"Why Vegas, though?"

"Isn't that what it's there for?" She took a swift hit from a plastic PAM puffer. This could be the reason why she was so talkative. He pretended not to have noticed. "It's nice to be in among a lot of people who appear to make a profession out of being lucky."

"They run out of luck and they move on."

"So what? I'm only going for the weekend. I can pretend." The woman looked around for the cabin attendent to give her another martini. The carts had all returned to the galley. Vickers swallowed the last of his scotch. "Maybe I should go and get us two more."

The woman shook her head. "No, no, I'll go. I'm on the outside."

As she slid out of the seat, the slit in her tapered skirt allowed Vickers a fast glimpse of an expanse of thigh topped with black lace. He doubted that it was an accident. While the woman was gone, he did some swift thinking. In the normal run of things, he would have rebuffed her. A lady TV exec on a desperate spree was the kind of relationship that could end, if not in disaster, at least in a mess of resentment well before her weekend was out. Not that he wasn't tempted; there was a part of him that could think of nothing better than spending seventy-two hours wallowing in bed and booze. It was just that he'd been down this same road too many times before. On the other hand, though, his brain had started ticking. Nobody looked twice at a guy flying into Las Vegas with a good looking woman. They also had a ready made excuse for why he didn't use a credit card or produce major ID. Husband and bimbo on a classic weekend. She might well be the best cover he could come up with on the spur of the moment.

She returned, juggling a couple of miniature scotches for him, two readymixed martinis in those plastic bulb containers, disposable glasses and some ice. She deftly slid into her seat without using her hands, which, on reflection, Vickers decided was quite a feat. She put Vickers' scotch in front of him, cracked the neck on the first readymix, poured it and raised her plastic cocktail glass in semi-toast. "Viva Las Vegas!"