to be gentled. Molniya cleared his throat, and Ulrich set the rifle down.
Hartmann let the breath go. The explosion wasn't coming. Quite yet.
"He's a good boy," Wolf said, giving Mackie another hug and letting him go. "He's the son of an American deserter and a Hamburg whore another victim of your imperialist venture in Southeast Asia, Senator."
"My father was a general," Mackie shouted in English. "Yes, Mackie; anything you say. The boy grew up running the docks and alleys, in and out of institutions. Finally he drifted to Berlin, more helpless flotsam cast up by our own frenetic consumer culture. He saw posters, began to attend study groups at the Free University-he's barely literate, the poor child-and that's where I found him. And recruited him."
"And he's been sooo helpful," Anneke said, rolling her eyes at Ulrich, who laughed. Mackie glanced at them, then quickly away.
You win, Puppetman said. What?
You're right. My control isn't perfect. And this one is too unpredictable, too ... terrible.
Hartmann almost laughed aloud. Of all the things he'd come to expect from the power that dwelt within him, humility wasn't one.
Such a waste; he'd be such a perfect puppet. And his emotion, so furious, so lovely-like a drug. But a deadly drug.
So you've given up. Relief flooded him. No. The boy just has to die. But that's all right. I've got it all worked out now.
Shroud squatted over Aardvark like a solicitous mummy, bathing his forehead with a length of his own bandage, which he'd dipped in water from one of the five-liter plastic cans stacked in the bedroom. He shook his head and murmured to himself.
Eyes malice-bright, Anneke danced up to him. "Thinking of all that lovely money you lost, Comrade?"
"Joker blood's been shed-again," Shroud said levelly. "It better not have been for nothing."
Anneke sauntered over to Ulrich. "You should have seen them, sweetheart. All ready to hand Senator Schweinfleisch over for a suitcase full of dollars." She pursed her lips. "I do believe they were so excited they forgot all about the frontline fighter we've sworn to liberate. They would have sold us all."
"Shut up, you bitch!" Gimli yelled. Spittle exploded from the center of his beard as he lunged for the redhead. With a scratch of chitin on wood Scrape interposed himself, threw his horny arms around his leader as guns came up.
A loud pop stopped them like a freeze-frame. Molniya stood with a bare hand upturned before his face, fingers extended as if to hold a ball. An ephemeral blue flicker limned the nerves of his hand and was gone.
"I€ we fight among ourselves," he said calmly, "we play into our enemies' hands."
Only Puppetman knew his calm was a lie.
Deliberately Molniya drew his glove back on. "We were betrayed. What more can we expect from the capitalist system we oppose?" He smiled. "Let us strengthen our resolve. If we stand together, we can make them pay for their treachery"
The potential antagonists fell back away from each other. Hartmann feared.
Puppetman exulted.
The last of day lay across the Brandenburg plain west of the city like a layer of polluted water. From the next block tinny Near Eastern music skirled from a radio. Inside the little room it was tropical, from the heat billowing out of the radiator that the handy Comrade Wilfried had got going despite the building's derelict status, as well as electricity; from the humidity of bodies confined under stress.
Ulrich let the cheap curtains drop and turned away from the window. "Christ, it stinks inhere," he said, doing stretches. "What do those fucking Turks do? Piss in the corners?"
Lying on the foul mattress next to the wall, Aardvark huddled closer around his injured gut and whimpered. Gimli moved over beside him, felt his head. His ugly little face was all knotted up with concern. "He's in a bad way," the dwarf said.
"Maybe we oughta get him to a hospital," Scrape said. Ulrich jutted his square chin and shook his head. "No way. We decided."
Shroud knelt down next to his boss, took Aardvark's hand, and felt the low fuzzy forehead. "He's got some fever."
"How can you tell?" Wilfried asked, his broad face concerned. "Maybe he's naturally got a higher temperature than a person, like a dog or something."
Quick as a teleport Gimli was across the room. He swept Wilfried off his feet with a transverse kick and straddled his chest, pummeling him. Shroud and Scrape hauled him off.
Wifried was holding his hands up before his face. "Hey, hey, what did I do?" He seemed