Armageddon Crazy

"The place is lousy with cameras. They must record everyone's every stroke," Reeves said.

Carlisle sniffed. "It's a system of interlocking blackmail. I know your sins, but you know mine."

"God can never have enough data."

Loud voices floated up from the parlor. The tour was cut short as Carlisle and Reeves hurried to the head of the stairs.

"What's going on down there?"

A new squad of deacons had arrived. They were being held at gunpoint in the parlor by the boys from the riot squad. Their leader was a tall man with a black leather coat draped over his shoulders. His hair was close to white blond and very long for a deacon. His eyes were hidden behind black Raybans.

Reeves whistled under his breath. "Christ, now you're in for it."

Carlisle nodded. "Dreisler. I didn't expect him so soon."

Matthew Dreisler was the head of Deacon Internal Affairs and, as the deacons' chief headhunter, possibly the most feared man in all of New York.

Carlisle hurried down the stairs, angrily demanding answers from the riot squad. "I thought I told you to seal this place!"

"We did."

"So how did these people get in?"

"They brought their own warrants."

Cold black sunglasses were regarding him. When Dreisler spoke, it was a patrician drawl that seemed almost decadent. "You must be Carlisle."

Harry nodded. "I'm Carlisle,"

"And you're the one with the theory. You think someone here is in cahoots with the LPs."

"I find it a little too much of a coincidence that a triple assassination should happen just a stone's throw from this establishment."

"You suspect a direct connection."

"I thought it merited investigation."

Dreisler removed his sunglasses. "Or did you just see a chance for the PD to humiliate the deacons?"

Carlisle did not answer.

Dreisler shrugged. "As it happens, I agree with you. With the first part, that is. That's why I'm taking over this investigation as of now."

Carlisle folded his arms across his chest. "I don't think I can go along with that."

Dreisler's pale eyebrows shot up. "You don't?"

"I'm the officer on the scene here and I've got the authority to keep anyone out if I decide they might compromise the investigation."

Dreisler had a white silk evening scarf draped around his neck. He was slowly twisting one end of it between the ringers of his left hand. "Go on."

"There's the possibility that a deacon has been turned by the terrorists, or that you have an infiltrator among you."

"If anyone fingered those boys, it was more likely one of the girls."

"Sure it is, but until I'm satisfied that it wasn't a deacon, I'm not letting any one of you near this."

Dreisler was smiling as if he admired Carlisle's gall. "Are you always so gung ho on procedure?"

Harry shook his head. "Not usually, but now and then it comes in handy."

"Do you know who I am?"

Carlisle nodded. That was the warning shot that he had been waiting for. "I know who you are, Deacon Dreisler."

"Either you have a lot of balls, or you're plain stupid."

"I'm a New York cop, Deacon Dreisler. Everything mat might imply."

Dreisler laughed as if he were conceding the point. "You have forgotten one thing, though."

Carlisle was instantly on his guard. "What's that?"

"There's been no crime committed here. You're not the officer on the scene because there is no scene."

Carlisle looked bemused. "We're standing in the middle of a functioning brothel."

"In that case you should have brought a vice warrant. We've been talking terrorism, and I don't see a single terrorist on the premises."

"I figure that this is close enough to the shooting to qualify as a secondary investigation point, and I've secured the premises accordingly."

Dreisler sighed as if he were getting weary of all this sparring. He held out the tracy on his wrist. "Do you know how long it would take me to get a ruling in my favor on this?"

Carlisle raised his hand. Enough was enough. "I know you can run me out of here at any time, but if you do, I'll be back with the first camera crew I come across. There's media all over the neighborhood. They were tipped and they went live with the killings before the censors could get in and blanket it. They'll love this."

Dreisler looked Carlisle up and down as if really seeing him for the first time. "Well, well, you don't give up too easily, do you, Carlisle?"

"Just doing my job."

Dreisler smiled. "The classic Nuremberg answer. I tell you what, Lieutenant Carlisle. While your men are doing their work, why don't you and I go somewhere on our own and talk about terrorism?"

THREE

Mansard

There was a chill wind blowing off the river and across the landfill. Charlie Mansard huddled his shoulders deeper into the bulk of his sheepskin coat. Behind him, the lights of the city had taken on their nighttime unreality. Mansard glanced back at them. All his life he had worked with lights, but they never lost their essential magic. It was ironic that light and illusion should have become his stable reality. He fished in his coat pocket for his other stable reality, pulled out the silver hip flask, and took a quick nip of scotch.

"Is there any coffee?"

Rita poured steaming coffee from a vacuum flask and held out the Styrofoam cup to him.

"You want to call a break so we can all get warm?"

Mansard shook his head. "Absolutely not. I want to get on with it."

Mansard had never transcended the elemental fear that the device would simply refuse to work. In the last minutes before the field test of the scale model, the tension was unbearable. If anything went wrong at this point, it would be a long way back to the drawing board. He turned to the nearest production assistant and pointed to the communicator on his belt. "Give me that."

He all but barked into the radio. "Are we ready yet?"

The unruffled voice of Jimmy Gadd came back to him through the tiny speaker. "Not quite, boss. Just a couple more minutes."

Mansard impatiently stamped his feet as he handed back the communicator.

Rita was as calm as Gadd. "Do you want an Equital?"

"No, I don't. I don't want any pills." In fact, he had taken two uppers on the way down to the landfill.

Rita sniffed. "If you don't calm down, you'll burst a blood vessel."

"I'm perfectly calm."

"Sure you are."

Mansard turned and faced the towering cityscape. "They could have blacked out the twin towers for us."

"They threw a shitfit. Said they couldn't do it, just for the test of a model."

Mansard turned back on the offending skyscrapers and faced the river. "Screw them."

The PA had his communicator to his ear. "It's Gadd, Mr. Mansard. He's ready to go."

Charlie Mansard held out his hand for the unit. "How is it, Jimmy? You can roll it?"

"Everything on line, boss. Zero on the fault deck."

"Okay, then, let's get to it."

Bono, the chief engineer, was already punching buttons on the portable masterboard. Rita handed Mansard a bullhorn. Mansard took a final look around.

"Okay, ladies and gentlemen, here we go. Fog up."

A dozen or more pillars of vapor rose straight up into the night sky from a point some fifty yards away. At first they were thin individual strands, but quickly they thickened and solidified into a single cohesive column.