glanced around and saw Hiram sweating, his right fist squeezing into a white-knuckled fist.
Sayyid whimpered, a shapeless mass on the tiles. The guards let go of Kahina in confusion.
Kahina ran. One of the guards brought his Uzi to bear, but he was slammed against the wall by Mordecai Jones. Jack Braun, glowing golden, picked up another of the Nur alAllah's guards and tossed him bodily across the room. Peregrine, her feathers molting, was unable to take to the air. Still, she slipped on her taloned gloves and slashed at a guard. Billy Ray, with an exultant whoop, spun and kicked the knees of the gunman alongside him.
Kahina ducked through an archway and was gone.
Sara found Gregg in the confusion. He was safe; a wave of relief flooded through her. She began to run toward him, and the relief turned frigid.
There was no more fright on his face, no concern at all. He seemed calm. He almost seemed to smile.
Sara gaped. She felt nothing but a yawning emptiness. "No," she whispered to herself.
What he would do to me, he would also do to you. "No," she insisted. "That can't be."
Nur al-Allah had pointed his accusing finger at Gregg, and Gregg had known that his only hope lay in the bitterness within Kahina. Nur al-Allah was beyond his control, he knew now, but Kahina was his. Gregg's rape of her mind was brutal and ruthless. He'd stripped everything from her but that underlying hate, letting it flood and swell. It had worked beyond his expectations.
But he'd wanted Kahina dead. He'd wanted her silenced. It must have been Hiram that had stopped Sayyidtoo chivalrous to give Kahina to Islamic justice and strangely brutal with his power. Gregg berated himself for not having foreseen that; he could have controlled Hiram, long a puppet, even with the strange hues he'd seen in the man lately. Now the moment was gone, the spell broken with the loss of Nur al-Allah's voice. Gregg let himself touch Hiram's mind and saw that faint, odd coloring there again. He had no time to muse on it.
People were shouting. An Uzi chattered, deafening.
In the midst of chaos Gregg felt Sara. He swung about to find her staring at him. Emotions were shifting wildly inside her. Her love was tattered, stretched thin under swelling ocher suspicion. "Sara," he called, and her gaze slid sharply away, looking at the press of people around Nur al-Allah. There was fighting all around him. He thought he saw Billy, glee on his face, dive bodily at a guard.
Let me have Sara or you've lost her. Puppetman sounded oddly sad. There's nothing you can say to undo the damage. She's all you can salvage from this. Give her to me, or she's gone too.
No, she can't know. It's not possible that she knows. Gregg protested, but he knew that he was wrong. He could see the damage in her mind. No lie could repair that.
Grieving, he entered her mind and caressed the torn azure fabric of her affection. Gregg watched as-slowly, carefullyPuppetman buried her distrust under bright and soft ribbons of false love.
He hugged her quickly. "Come on," he said gruffly. "We're leaving."
Out in the room Billy Ray stood over an unconscious guard. His strident voice ordered his security people into position. "Move! You-get the doctor. Senator Hartmann now! Let's get out of here!" There was still some resistance on the floor, but Nur al-Allah's people were in shock. Most knelt around Nur al-Allah's prone body. The prophet was still alive: Gregg could sense his fright, his pain. Gregg wanted Nur al-Allah dead, too, but there was no opportunity for that.
Gunfire erupted near Gregg. Braun, glowing intensely now, stepped in front of the hidden gunman; they could hear the whine of the slugs ricocheting from his body. Gregg grunted in shock even as Braun tore the weapon away from the man. A lancing fire slammed into his shoulder, the impact staggering him. "Gregg!" he heard Sara cry.
On his knees, he groaned. He pulled his hand away from his shoulder and saw his fingers bright with blood. The room spun around him; Puppetman cowered.
"Joanne, get 'em out! The Senator's hit!" Billy Ray moved Sara aside and crouched beside Gregg. He carefully stripped the bloodstained jacket from the senator to examine the wound. Gregg could feel relief flood through the man. "You'll be okay-a good, long graze, that's all. Let me give you a hand-"
"I can make it," he grated through clenched teeth, struggling to his feet. Sara