“I’d say that’s much too good to be true.”

“No, Ron. It’s the new order, here at the Collaboratory. You just don’t need major scientific advances in the American car industry. You’ve already had more of that than you can stand. You guys are a national historic treasure, like a buffalo herd or Valley Forge. You need protection from the menace of basic research. Instead of paying federal scientists to march your industry right off the cliff, you should be paying scientists protection money not to research your business. That’ll ensure that your industry doesn’t go anywhere.”

“That sounds so beautiful,” Griego said wistfully. “Is it legal?”

“Why not? Your sabotage routine can’t be legal, but you’ve been getting away with that for years. My proposal is a major improvement on the status quo, because now we’re being honest about it. As a gesture of goodwill, I’ll not only overlook your sad little corporate espionage, I’ll cut your R D expenditure in half!”

“What’s the catch?”

“The catch is — the Collaboratory is in a small financial bind at the moment, so you’ll have to ship us an entire year’s corporate R D funding, up front. Given our understanding, can you clear that finan-cial move with your people in Detroit?”

“Well, I’ll have to talk to Dad about it.”

“You have a word with the higher-ups, Ron. Tell Dad and the other board members that if they don’t accept my offer pronto, I’ll turn this entire lab’s brainpower onto that project. And we’ll be ship-ping sugar engines out the doors by next June. In a giant blaze of publicity.” He hung up.

“Did you really mean all that?” Kevin said. He’d been eavesdrop-ping with great interest.

“I don’t know,” Oscar said. “I just came into some luck there. I happened to know the buttons that work on good old Ronnie, and the whole scheme just came to me in a blaze of inspiration. It’s a very weird, lateral move, but it gets us off three or four hooks at once. It wins us a nice financial breathing space. Ron’s happy, we’re happy, everyone but Chander is happy, and Chander was finished anyway. Because Chander got in my face by stealing my moves.”

“You can’t really protect the car industry from a basic scientific discovery like a new power source.”

“Kevin, wake up. You need to stop thinking like a technician. Where did that habit ever get you? Don’t you see what I just pulled here? For the first time ever, we’re getting people to pay us not to do research. That is a genuine new power source. For the first time, fed-eral scientists have a real economic weapon — they can carry the war right to their enemy. Who cares about another damned battery? It’s probably a crock anyway. Did you ever see an atomic-powered car? Just because it’s technically possible doesn’t mean it’s practically do-able. ”

“People will do something with it anyway. You politicians can’t control the flow of technical knowledge. They’ll exploit it no matter what the government says.”

“Kevin, I know that. I am living proof of that phenomenon. It’s what made me what I am today.”

At two in the morning on January 20, there came a tap on Oscar’s hotel room door. It was Fred Dillen, the krewe’s janitor and launderer. Fred was drunk — the krewe had been celebrating the official and long-awaited swearing-in of Senator Bambakias, while drinking many patriotic toasts to the new Administration of President Two Feathers. Fred was accompanied by a chunky Anglo woman in her thirties, who was wearing bright orange medical-emergency gear.

“Party getting out of hand?” Oscar said.

“Oscar, this lady needs to talk to you,” Fred said.

“I didn’t know what room you were in,” the paramedic said sullenly. “Had to bust in on a whole bunch of drunks downstairs.”

“I’m glad you’re here. Is there a problem?” Oscar said.

“Yeah. We have an injured female, mid-thirties. She broke her ankle. But she says she doesn’t want to go to our clinic. She won’t even give us her name and ID. She says she wants to talk with you first.”

“What clinic are you taking her to?” Oscar said.

“Well, we want to take her to the ER in Buna. She wanted to go into the Collaboratory, but we can’t take her in there. They got all these giant airlocks and all this security crap and besides, we’re not legally cleared to do ER services inside a federal facility.”

“What happened to her? How did she have the accident?”

“Well, she says she just happened to be walkin’ over here in the middle of the road, in the middle of the night, and she tripped on something.” The paramedic looked at Oscar with distaste. “Listen, all this is way against regulations. Most people who break a leg are plenty happy to see an ambulance. But she wouldn’t shut up about it. She begged me to find some guy named Valparaiso, so now I found you. You wanna do something about it? Because if you don’t, adios, muchacho.”

“No, please don’t be hasty, I’ll go with you. I very much want to talk to your patient.” Oscar looked at the paramedic’s nametag. “Thank you very much for taking the trouble to find me, Ms. Willis. I know this isn’t orthodox procedure, but I can make it well worth your while.”

Willis settled back onto the worn heels of her white athletic shoes. “Well then,” she said, and smiled. “Then maybe it ain’t so bad after all.”

Oscar found a jacket, his wallet, and a pair of shoes. He glanced at the slumbering Kevin. To observe strict security, he ought to wake his bodyguard and drag him along in the wheelchair — but it was two in the morning, and the hardworking Kevin had been drinking like a pig. Oscar tucked a telephone in his pocket and stepped into the hall. He closed the door silently, then handed Willis a twenty-ecu Euro-pean bill.

Willis tucked the cash into a velcro-tabbed orange pocket. “Muchas gracias, amigo.”

“I hope Greta’s all right,” Fred said anxiously.

“Try not to worry,” Oscar told him. Fred was not the brightest light in the krewe. But Fred was a very loyal and good-hearted sort, a man who repaid a kind word with dogged loyalty. “You can go back to the party now. We really want to keep this little business quiet. Don’t tell anyone. Okay?”

“Oh,” Fred said. “Right. No problem, Oscar.”

Oscar and Ms. Willis went downstairs and through the lobby. Dutch party music echoed down the entrance loggia. “Sure is a nice hotel,” Willis remarked.

“Thanks. Maybe you’d like to check in for the weekend.”

“On my salary? I can’t afford a classy place like this.”

“If you’re discreet about this little incident, ma’am, I’ll treat you and any guest of your choice to a three-day stay with full room service.”

“Gee, that’s a mighty generous offer. This Gretel person must really mean a lot to you.” Willis led him down the paved walkway and into the street. A limo-sized white ambulance waited under the pines, with its lights on and the driver’s door open. Willis waved cheerily at the driver, who waved back in evident relief.

“She’s lyin’ in the back, on a stretcher,” Willis said. “It’s a pretty bad break. You want some good advice, compadre? From now on, don’t make your dang girlfriends sneak around in the dark.”

“I’m sure that’s good advice,” Oscar said. He stood up on the bumper and gazed into the ambulance. Greta was lying on a canvas stretcher in a metal rack, with her hands behind her head.

Willis slapped her hands against Oscar’s rump and gave him a hefty shove. Oscar stumbled into the ambulance, and Willis immedi-ately slammed the double doors. The vehicle went as black as a tomb.

“Hey!” Oscar blurted.

The vehicle left the curb and racketed away with a jounce of hydraulics.

“Greta,” he said. No response. He crawled in darkness to her side, reached out. His questing hand landed somewhere on her rib cage. She was unconscious. But she was alive; she was breathing.