He stopped at the locker room to change and then picked up a gun from the armory on his way downstairs to the Bounzer Tube facilities. The techs there had already been given the proper coordinates, and he was able to step into the giant steel test-tube without delay. Three minutes later the curved wall vanished and he found himself across the street from a modest three-story brick building that was already beginning to collect a fair-sized crowd.
Cord turned to see a sloppy-looking man leaning against a street light a few feet away. "Right," he acknowledged, stepping closer.
"Dietrich. You bring us any good pictures?"
"Complete set." Cord held his wrist up and displayed the face he'd seen in Hole's office. "Didn't they send you any?"
"Yeah, but the transmission was lousy and I didn't want to trust it." The other reached down and tapped the record key on his own computer. "You cut things a little fine-we've got maybe five minutes before the motorcade arrives.
"I didn't have much of a choice," Cord glanced at the still-growing crowd. "Crowly's taking a chance on getting torn apart with that smokescreen about aiming for the mayor."
"Better than going up on a federal assassination charge." Dietrich nodded past the school building. "I've got my men positioned where they can theoretically see everywhere in the crowd and also watch all approaches. There's a robot scanner on the school roof keeping watch on the windows in the surrounding buildings. Two men are on the President directly, of course."
Cord nodded. "I think I'll start mingling, then; see if our man isn't standing quietly behind someone taller in the crowd. See you later-and make sure your men get that clearer picture."
"Already sent it. Beep if you need help."
Cord set off across the street, eyes giving the edges of the crowd a quick check. It was too bad that robot scanners weren't capable of good identification in crowds this densely packed; but they weren't, and there wasn't anything he could do about it. Pausing once, he surreptitiously raised his computer and had it rotate Crowly's picture for him, letting him see what the potential assassin looked like from all directions. Then, conscious of the pistol nestled beneath his left arm, he continued on.
Ahead, a car pulled to a rapid halt in front of the school building. Cord looked up, but it was just a TV
crew, running ahead of the main cars to get their mini-cams in position. He kept moving, forcing his eyes to maintain their methodical sweep. Panicking was the worst thing that an agent could do at a time like this.
There was a swell of anticipation from the crowd and a long black limousine pulled smoothly to the curb.
The mayor got out first, waving and smiling at the people as his bodyguards took positions flanking the door. Behind him the governor wriggled out of the seat, his bulk making the operation look awkward.
From the school's front door a group of children appeared-an honor guard of sorts, Cord decided-and walked two by two toward the waiting dignitaries. Cord craned his neck for one last sweep... and spotted Crowly.
Cord fired.
Nothing spectacular happened at his end, of course; Secret Service weapons were totally silent and flashless. At Crowly's end... well, someone paying close attention might have noticed the slight jerk caused by the impacting capsule, or the look of pure terror that erupted on the young man's face and was quickly frozen in place. The tiny jerking motions as he tried to tear free of the "living plastic" film that was rapidly overgrowing him were too small even to bother those standing beside him.
He was just starting to lose his balance when Dietrich's men appeared on either side of him and carried him quietly out of the crowd.
"Well, chalk up another one for the good guys," Dietrich commented as they watched Crowly being loaded into a car a hundred feet away from the unnoticing crowd. The plastic over Crowly's nose and around his rib cage had been removed to let him breathe, but even at their distance Cord could see that the terrified expression was still plastered across his face.
"I suppose so," he told Dietrich. "We got Crowly without causing any fuss, if that's what you mean. But if we were doing our jobs really properly he'd never have gotten to the Bounzer Tube in the first place."
Dietrich shrugged. "You can't hold back the tide with your hands," he said philosophically. "Progress is progress and you can't stop it. Who knows? If they ever get the fine-tune bugs worked out of the method, the Bounzer Tube might actually make our jobs easier."
Cord shrugged, and his eyes strayed to the ceremonies still taking place on the school's front walk. The mayor was shaking hands with each of the children in the honor guard now, and Cord couldn't help but notice the natural dignity one of the boys displayed, the ease with which he faced the politicians. Even at the age of nine he looks presidential, he thought. I wonder if he's decided yet on his life's ambition.
"Maybe it will, someday," he said aloud to Dietrich. "But it'll never be as easy as in the old days, when we only had to protect a President after he was elected." He shook his head. "I wish to hell Bounzer had never invented his damn time-travel machine."
FINAL SOLUTION
Narda Jalal had finished her solitary dinner and was starting go load the dishes into the sonic cleaner when the kitchen radio reached its five-thirty timer setting and switched on.
"...Five-thirty world news survey. The Hasar Council of Ministers has officially rejected the demand by the Lorikhan Nation that the minerals of the Enhoav Basin be divided evenly among all the nations of Kohinoor. Supreme Minister Zagro has said repeatedly that, since Hasar provided ninety percent of the technology and funding used to crack the mantle fault three years ago, the bulk of the project's rewards should be ours. Lorikhan's threat of war over this issue is dismissed by the government as mere bluff. The Prima of Missai, meanwhile, has offered his nation's good services as mediator-"
"Radio controclass="underline" off," Narda called. Obediently, the radio fell silent. Brushing a strand of hair from her face, Narda stared through the dishes by the sink, her teeth clenched with abnormal tightness. So that was it. Three years of negotiation had ended without anyone budging a single centimeter, and once more the threat of war hung like a weapons satellite over Kohinoor, circling and waiting to drop. And this time it wouldn't be just a local flare-up over borders or water rights. The Enhoav Basin, that tremendous treasure house of minerals torn forcibly from Kohinoor's molten insides, was a potential Juggernaut in a world economy where even copper was selling for over a hundred ryal per kilo. For the riches of Enhoav all the nations would fight. All of them.
was it. Three years of negotiation had ended without anyone budging a single centimeter, and once more the threat of war hung like a weapons satellite over Kohinoor, circling and waiting to drop. And this time it wouldn't be just a local flare-up over borders or water rights. The Enhoav Basin, that tremendous treasure house of minerals torn forcibly from Kohinoor's molten insides, was a potential Juggernaut in a world economy where even copper was selling for over a hundred ryal per kilo. For the riches of Enhoav all the nations would fight. All of them.
It seemed impossible to her that a single world could have so much war, especially a world with Kohinoor's history. Its founders had left Earth for the express purpose of escaping warfare and conflict.
They'd been men and women of peace, if the history disks could be believed; visionaries who believed there was a better way. What had gone wrong?
A motion across the street caught her eye. Looking through the window, she saw their neighbor Mehlid step from his door, easel and paints in tow, and head toward the row of hills a few hundred meters behind his house. He was a large man, surprisingly well-built for an artist. Narda watched him as he walked away, thinking of the long, sensitive fingers that seemed so out of place with those broad shoulders- With a sharp shake of her head she tore her eyes away, a hot rush of guilt flooding her face with blood.