could possibly have gotten away. But now it was back, filling him up to overflow. "Tell me, what did you people think you were doing?"
"It wasn't my people," Neumann said. "It was the political branch of the Berlin Land police. The Bundeskriminalamt had nothing to do with it."
"It was all a setup," Xavier Desmond said, stroking his trunk with leaden fingers. "That millionaire philanthropist who lent the ransom-"
"Was fronting for the political police."
"Herr Neumann." It was a Popo with grass stains on the knees of his once sharply pressed trousers, pointing an accusing finger at Tachyon "He let the terrorists go. Pauli had a clear shot at them, and he-he knocked him down with that mind power of his."
"The officer was aiming his weapon at a crowd of people through whom the terrorists were fleeing," Tach said tautly. "He could not have fired without hitting innocent bystanders. Or perhaps I am confused as to who is the terrorist."
The plainclothesman turned red. "You interfered with one of my officers! We could have stopped them=" Neumann reached out and grabbed a pinch of the man's cheek. "Go elsewhere," he said softly. "Really."
The man swallowed and walked away, sending hostile looks back over his shoulder at Tachyon. Tachyon grinned and shot him the bird.
"Oh, Gregg, my God, what have we done?" sobbed Hiram. "We'll never get him back."
Tachyon tugged on his elbow, more trying to encourage him to his feet than help him. He forgot about Hiram's gravity power; the fat man popped right up. "What do you mean, Hiram, my friend?"
"Are you out of your mind, Doctor? They'll kill him now."
Sara gasped. When Tach glanced to her she looked quickly away, as if unwilling to show him her eyes.
"Not so, my friend," Neumann said. "That's not how the game is played."
He stuck hands in the pockets of his trousers and gazed off across the misty park at the line of trees that masked the outer fences of the zoo. "But now the price will go up."
"The bastards!" Gimli turned, whipping rain from the tail of his raincoat, and beat fists on the mottled walls. "The cocksuckers. They set us up!"
Shroud and Scrape were huddled over the thin, filthy mattress on which Aardvark lay moaning softly. Everybody else seemed to be milling around a room crowded with heavy damp as well as bodies.
Hartmann sat with his head pulled protectively down inside his sweat-limp collar. He agreed with Gimli's character assessment. Are those fools trying to get me killed?
A thought went home like a whaler's bomb-lance: Tachyon!
Does that alien demon suspect? is this a convoluted Takisian plot to get rid of me without a scandal?
Puppetman laughed at him. `Never attribute to malice what may adequately be explained by stupidity,' he said. Hartmann recognized the quote; Lady Black had said it to Carnifex once, during one of his rages.
Mackie Messer stood shaking his head. "This isn't right," he said, half-pleading. "We have the senator. Don't they know that?"
Then he was raging around the room like a cornered wolf, snarling and hacking air with his hands. People jostled to get out of the way of those hands.
"What do they think's going on?" Mackie screamed. "Who do they think they're fucking with? I'll tell you something. I'll tell you what. Maybe we should send them a few pieces of the Senator here, show them what's what."
He buzzed his hand inches from the tip of the captive's nose.
Hartmann yanked his head back. Christ, he almost got me! The intent had been there, for real-Puppetman had felt it, felt it waver at the final millisecond.
"Calm down, Detlev," Anneke said sweetly. She seemed exalted by the shootout in the park. She'd been fluttering around and laughing at nothing since the group's return, and red spots glowed like greasepaint on her cheeks. "The capitalists wont be eager to pay all we ask for damaged goods." Mackie went white. Puppetman felt fresh anger burst inside him like a bomb. "Mackie! I'm Mackie Messer, you fucking bitch! Mackie the Knife, just like my song."
Detlev was slang for faggot, Hartmann remembered. He kept his last breath inside.
Anneke smiled at the youthful ace. From the side of his eye Hartmann saw Wilfried pale, and Ulrich picked up an AKM with an elaborate casualness he wouldn't have thought the blond terrorist could muster.
Wolf put his arm around Mackie's shoulders. "There, Mackie, there. Anneke didn't mean anything by it." Her smile made a liar of him. But Mackie pressed against the big man's side and allowed himself