“Are you with the government, Mr. Bullock?” Mark asked, trying hard to sound casual.

Blue-gray eyes held his for a beat. “Let’s just say I’m here in a private capacity, shall we?”

Right. With his thumb Mark popped the plastic cap of the vial he held loosely in his left fist and tossed the contents down his throat with a fluid motion. Blue powder, with sparkles of silver and black.

“Great Caesar’s ghost!” Randall Bullock exclaimed, jumping to his feet. He took a step forward.

It wasn’t Mark he took a step toward. It was a man not much taller than Bullock was, with pale blue skin and a cowled black cloak.

“Really, can’t you let a man have any peace?” the blue man asked in a stranger’s peevish voice. He hopped lightly to the sill, then stepped through the window, which was still closed.

Randall Bullock’s reactions were good. He only stood rooted for a second and a half. Then he strode forward and threw open the window.

“Doctor Meadows!” he yelled into the rain. “Doctor Meadows, come back! You’re making a terrible mistake!”

At the end of the block he caught a swirl of black, in which stars seemed to glitter, disappearing around the corner. The only reply was a defiant laugh.

Actually, it was more of a nasty snicker.

“Let me suggest the Northern Lights,” the waiter said in excellent English. “It is the spйcialitй de la maison. It provides a most mellow experience, and one that you can fully enjoy here in our establishment. The Red Lebanon is also excellent, but I must warn you, it is best sampled in the privacy of your hotel or living quarters. And, of course, you will please remember not to operate a motor vehicle while under the influence of any of our fine smokables.”

Lynn Saxon sat back with his arms folded and a cool little smile under his military mustache. Helen Carlysle had her neck at full extension, holding her head over the box the waiter proffered on a silver tray but as far away as she could and still examine its contents, as if they were live but exotic bugs. Gary Hamilton peered carefully inside.

“I think I’ll try the Northern Lights,” he said.

“Very good choice, sir. I will bring a selection of pipes.”

The waiter went away. Hamilton sat back, flushing on his prominent Slav cheekbones. He had on a cream-colored sport jacket over a blue polo shirt with the collar loose around his thick neck. In the smoke-filtered light from the discreet cut-crystal light fixtures, his blond hair appeared to be thinning in front, just a shade. In general he looked like a failed college jock who was just waiting to develop enough of a beer gut to be credible as a football coach. Helen Carlysle stared at him in disbelief.

Saxon leaned his elbows on the table and peered into the candle in its amber-glass vessel in the center of the table. With his dark eyes and hair he looked like an apprentice Gypsy fortuneteller practicing to look mystical for the gadjo. He wore a black-and-red soccer jersey and one of those long duster coats, black with white flecks, that had been popular with the hip-hop crowd a couple of seasons ago.

“So when does Meadows show up?” he asked the flame. Then he spoiled the effect by glancing quickly at Helen in her blue-and-silver yuppie skirt-suit to see if she was buying it.

“Mind if I sit down, Ms. Mistral?” a voice asked.

She started, as if the name had stung her, turned in her chair. “Major Belew,” she said. “Ah… please. Do sit down. And it’s, ah, it’s Helen Carlysle. Or Ms. Carlysle.”

The newcomer nodded and sat. In his dark-blue three-piece with the conservative pinstripe, he looked far more one with the scene than the other three Americans. The Cafй Northern Lights of an evening was a dignified, hardwood-paneled sort of place, where a man might sit and sip his coffee and peruse his Neudeutsscher Zeitung and choke some hemp in congenial surroundings.

“Certainly, Ms. Carlysle. I wasn’t sure whether your ace name might be what the Japanese call basho-gara, ’appropriate to the circumstances.’ You can dispense with my title, too, by the way. Plain Mr. Belew is fine. Or Bob – J. Robert to my friends, whom I’d be honored if you’d count yourself among.”

“Mister Belew,” she said.

“The elusive fourth man arrives,” Lynn said, sitting back in his chair.

Belew nodded. “We can play bridge now, if that’s what you were waiting for.”

“What’ve you been up to?”

“Going to and fro in the Earth, and walking up and down ’in it.’” He looked from one agent to the other. “The Dutch are mightily ticked about that little shooting spree in the Damplein yesterday. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about it?”

Helen bit her lip. Hamilton glanced quickly at Saxon. His buddy just kept steady eyes on Belew.

“They can’t prove anything,” Hamilton said sullenly.

Saxon laughed suddenly. “These fuckin’ Dutch. They’re in a war, and they don’t even know it.”

“They’re operating under the quaint illusion that it is their country. And their cops aren’t as fat and sleepy and complacent as they look.”

Saxon looked at him with apparent shock. “Then what about all this?” he demanded, taking in the hash cafй with a sweep of his hand. Heads raised at the American shrillness. “Look at this shit. They’re selling smoke in public. The cops do nothing.”

“They have a tradition of tolerance hereabouts.”

“Well, excuse me. But we’re the American DEA. And we have a new tradition of tolerance: zero tolerance.”

“It’s the New World Order,” Hamilton said.

“It’s still hard time for assault with a deadly weapon if they make you for it.”

Saxon leaned forward. Small points of light glittered in his black eyes. “Hey, I thought you were Captain Combat. Real hardcore Nam vet. Cowboy for the Company. All that jazz.”

“Nobody calls it the Company except in the movies. They say the weapon used in yesterday’s attack was a Czech Skorpion, or something very much like it. Tell me, Agent Saxon, just where is your sidearm? You have it on you? Of course you do; you sleep with your piece. I’ve seen your jacket.”

He turned to the other agent and plucked at his lapel.

“And I’ve seen your jacket, too, Agent Hamilton. That Miami Vice coat isn’t quite enough to hide your bulge, big boy. Well,” he said, leaning back, “all God’s children got guns – best-armed pot party in Amsterdam. Except, of course, for Ms. Carlysle?”

She was staring at the dark-stained hardwood tabletop and blushing angrily. “I don’t like guns.”

“Ah, yes. ’Guns don’t die – people do.’ Guns are evil, wicked, mean and nasty. Not benevolent, like ace powers.” He put his head to the side. “I remember your dad from, oh, my third tour in the Nam. Cyclone. Real kick-in-the-pants, that guy. Used to take your captured Charles up with him to, oh, about a thousand feet. If Charles didn’t want to talk to him then, your old man let him come back by himself.”

She gave a strangled tiny scream, like a snared rabbit. “No! That’s a lie. My father – my father would never do anything like that.”

“You know him best, I guess.”

“She should,” Saxon said, and sniggered. “She killed him.”

She went white and started to rise. Then she controlled herself with visible effort, settled back into the chair. For a moment she stared down at her hands, knotting and unknotting in her lap.

“It wasn’t me,” she said in a tight, tiny voice. “I’d been jumped. It… wasn’t me.”

“He’s a tactful young bloke,” Belew said cheerfully. “Would you like me to kill him?” Saxon was glaring at him when the waiter arrived with a selection of pipes for sale – health regulations forbade lending or renting them out to customers. Somewhat self-consciously, Hamilton selected one. The waiter laid out his hash, along with steaming cups for Lynn and Helen. Belew waved him off.

Helen Carlysle watched Hamilton prepare his pipe with wide hazel eyes that glittered with moisture. “I can’t believe you use that poison.”