proved we can play the waiting game; it's time to make things move a little."
And Comrade Molniya said, "No."
The fear was gathering. Bit by bit it coalesced into a cancer, black and amorphous in the center of his brain. With each minute's passage it seemed Molniya's heart gained a beat. His ribs felt as if they were vibrating from the speed of his pulse. His throat was dry and raw, his cheeks burned as though he stared into the open maw of a crematorium. His mouth tasted like offal. He had to get out. Everything depended on it.
Everything.
No, a part of him cried. You've got to stay. That was the plan.
Behind his eyes he saw his daughter Ludmilya sitting in a rubbled building with her melted eyes running down blister-bubbled cheeks. This is at stake, Valentin Mikhailovich, another, deeper voice replied, if anything goes wrong. Do you dare entrust this errand to these adolescents?
"No," he said. His parched palate would barely produce the word. "I'll go."
Wolf frowned. Then the ends of his wide mouth drew up in a smile. Doubtless it occurred to him that would leave him in complete control of the situation. Fine. Let him think as he will. I've got to get out of here.
Mackie blocked the door, Mackie Messer with tears thronging the lower lids of his eyes. Molniya felt fear spike within him, almost ripped off a glove to shock the boy from his path. But he knew the young ace would never harm him, and he knew why.
He mumbled an apology and shouldered past. He heard a sob as the door shut behind him, and then only his footsteps, pursuing him down the darkened hall.
One of my better performances, Puppetman congratulated himself.
Cake.
Mackie beat his open palms on the door. Molniya had abandoned him. He hurt, and he couldn't do anything about the hurt. Not even if he made his hands buzz so they'd cut through steel plate.
Wolf was still here. Wolf would protect him ... but Wolf hadn't. Not really. Wolf had let the others laugh at him-him, Mackie the ace, Mackie the Knife. It had been Molniya who'd stood up for him the last few weeks. Molniya who had taken care of him.
Molniya who was gone. Who wasn't supposed to go. Who was gone.
He turned, weeping, and slid slowly down the door to the floor.
Exhilaration swelled Puppetman. It was all working just as he had planned. His puppets cut the capers he directed and suspected nothing. And here he sat, at breath's distance, drinking their passions like brandy. Danger was no more than added poignance; he was Puppetman, and in control.
And finally the time had come to make an end of Mackie Messer and get himself out of here.
Anneke stood over Mackie, taunting: "Crybaby. And you call yourself a revolutionary?" He pulled himself upright, whimpering like a lost puppy.
Puppetman reached out for a string, and pulled.
And Comrade Ulrich said, "Why didn't you just go with the rest of the jokers, you ugly little queer?"
"Kreuzberg," Neumann said.
Slumped in his chair, Tachyon could barely muster the energy to lift his head and say, "I beg your pardon?" Ten o'clock was ancient history now. So, he feared, was Senator Gregg Hartmann.
Neumann grinned. "We have them. It took the Devil's own time, but we traced the van. They're in Kreuzberg. The Turkish ghetto next to the Wall."
Sara gasped and quickly looked away.
" An antiterrorist team from GSG-9 is standing by," Neumann said.
"Do they know what they're doing?" Tach asked, remembering the afternoon's fiasco.
"They're the best. They're the ones who sprang the Lufthansa 737 the Nur al-Allah people hijacked to Mogadishu in 1977. Hans-Joachim Richter himself is in charge." Richter was the head of the Ninth Border Guards Group, GSG-9, especially formed to combat terrorism after the Munich massacre of '72. A popular hero in Germany, he was reputed to be an ace, though nobody knew what his powers might be. Tach stood. "Let's go."
Mackie's left hand cut right down Comrade Ulrich's right side from the base of his neck to the hip. It felt good going through, and the kiss of bone thrilled him like speed.
Ulrich's arm fell off. He stared at Mackie. His lips peeled back away from perfect teeth, which clacked open and closed three times like something in the window of a novelty store.
He looked down at what had been his perfect animal body and shrieked.
Mackie watched in fascination. The scream made his exposed lung work in and out like a vacuum cleaner bag,