"Then where is he? What's happened to him?"

"I don't know. I think he's still aboard here somewhere. They could have stashed him anywhere."

Packer got a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. He seemed to be riding a swift elevator down.

"Trouble is, it would take me a couple hundred man-hours to find him, and then the search would alert whoever it is that has him to move him somewhere else."

"What about the guy who tried to kill me a few minutes ago?"

"It's between shifts. My second-shift crew hasn't signed on yet. No one saw anything, I'm afraid."

"What kind of place do you run here?" Packer was quickly losing his temper. He had been cooped up in his cell for a day and a night and no one was on duty when the assassins struck.

Ramm dismissed his anger with a swipe of his hand. "I don't blame you for getting steamed. But you have to remember, we're not a police force-I mean, in a way we are, but this isn't a high. crime area. It isn't like a real city. Mostly we just make sure that people stay out of construction areas and watch the locks on the restaurant pantries after hours, that sort of thing.

"We weren't expecting a strike. You've got to consider that a place like Gotham isn't exactly equipped to handle an armed insurrection. It isn't in the blueprints. Nobody planned on that ever happening."

"Well," grumbled Packer, "maybe it's time that somebody started planning for it-if it isn't already too late."

10

… THE CAMP OF THE bandits looked less like a camp and more like a gypsy village than anything Spence had ever seen. Tents of scrap cloth and tarp sewn together, draped over branches or supported with poles scavenged in the jungle, gave the place a wild, fanciful appearance. Small children scampered half -naked to see the odd-looking visitors. Old men sat around the ashes of the previous night's fire nodding and pointing and clacking toothless gums as the raiding party returned with the booty. Women came running to see what their men had brought home for them. Over all an air of whimsical gaiety prevailed.

It was hard for Spence to imagine that these peaceful, happy people made their living killing the unlucky and robbing the unwary. He had expected the outlaw's hideaway to be a snake pit, dark and hateful, full of desperate men whose way of life made them vicious and unruly.

That these thieves had families that ran laughing to meet them amused him.

"Quite a picture," Spence whispered to Adjani as they moved down a wide avenue between tents and shelters made from empty cargo crates. Children ran along beside them giggling and pointing in the manner of excited children everywhere.

"Don't let it fool you, Spencer." Adjani spoke softly and peered with narrowed eyes at the leader of the bandits walking just ahead of them. "The cheerful highwayman is the more dangerous. Believe me, these men will not hesitate to disembowel us in front of their wives and children if it pleases them."

Spence thought Adjani was being melodramatic about their situation. But Gita, whose tongue had not stirred the whole of the trek into the jungle, rolled his eyes and quivered, saying, "Adjani knows of what he speaks, Spence Reston. Listen to him. These men are cutthroats for all their easy ways."

"But you can't think they'd harm us now. We have nothing of value."

"Don't you see? They have lived too long above the law; they have become secure, fearing nothing. Such men do not shrink from the worst deeds imaginable."

Gita nodded his agreement readily, so Spence said no more about it. Still, he found himself smiling at the children and gawking around the camp as if he were a tourist on holiday.

They had marched all night and rested only a few hours before striking off again. Now the sun stood high in the sky, filtering down through the leafy green canopy above. The prisoners were paraded through the camp and brought to the biggest tent and made to sit down under a large patchwork awning between two guards while the bandits proceeded to divide up the night's harvest of merchandise piled in the center of the settlement.

The shouting of the men and shrieking of the women was still in full chorus when the leader disengaged himself from the swarm around the goods and came to stand before them. The guards prodded the prisoners to their feet with their rifle muzzles.

The bandit leader, a huge hulk of a man with a spreading belly concealed beneath his flowing kaftan, eyed them with interest, and then spoke rapidly to Gita. Gita touched his forehead and bowed low. The leader pushed through them and went into his tent.

"His name is Watti and he wants us to follow him," explained Gita.

"After you," said Spence, and the three went into the leader's dwelling.

Though the interior was dark, the patchwork let in irregular splotches of light, decorating the inside with a speckled pattern that lifted and flowed as the tent breathed in the jungle breeze.

The goonda chief led them to a far corner and opened a flap in the side of the tent. Sunlight streamed in upon a bed of cushions on which a young boy rested so still that Spence thought at first he was dead.

Here was the reason they had been brought. The chief of the brigands wanted them to heal his son-that much at least needed no words. The look of the thief's face told as much as he gazed upon the boy's limp form. Likewise, his curt order to them left no doubt about their fate should their combined medical art fall short of curing the boy. A leisurely, painfully protracted death would commence immediately. That Spence also gathered without an interpreter.

Gita fell to his knees and began untying his linen sacks and rummaging through them. There were bags within bags, but he found one he wanted and opened it and drew out an old-fashioned stethoscope which he put on and immediately displayed his best doctorly manner, hovering over the boy and listening through the obsolete instrument.

Chief Watti seemed pleased and left them to their business.

"I hope we have enough medicine between us to do some good," remarked Spence when they were once again alone.

"It seems we have no choice," replied Adjani.

"His breathing is shallow and very light." Gita frowned. "He may be beyond help."

Adjani knelt over the patient and placed a hand on his forehead. "He's on fire! The boy is burning up with fever."

"What else do you have in your sack, Gita? Any drugs? Medicine?"

"Nothing much -novocaine, aspirin, a few antibiotics. I'm a dentist, remember."

"The antibiotics might be some help," said Adjani. "If we could only figure out what's wrong with him."

"We can try to get his temperature down in any case," said Spence. "Let's have the aspirin."

Gita reached his hand in and fished around and withdrew a small plastic bottle. "Here. Sixty tablets. Maybe enough, eh?"

"Let's give him some antibiotics, too, and a sponge bath and see if that will help." To Spence's amazed look Adjani replied, "Yes, antibiotics are still quite useful in this part of the world. Now then, Gita, go and tell Watti we need some water in a basin and clean cloths." Gita gave him a pleading look. "Yes, you. For all they know you're the only one that speaks Hindi. You'll be our spokesman."

Gita went out and came back in a few moments. They sat looking at the boy helplessly, desperately trying to recall the medical knowledge they possessed. Their lives depended upon such stray information now.

In a while a young woman in a yellow and orange sari entered the tent with a large bowl of water and several washcloths and towels. She spoke to Gita shyly and then withdrew a few paces to watch with folded hands.

"She is Watti's wife; the boy's mother, at least. I think Watti has more than one wife. She will get us anything we need."