“What chances?” the woman protested. “Everyone on board will be out twenty-four hours, including him. I don’t understand all the precautions. Seems like a bloody lot of trouble to go through to take one fugitive.”

“You heard the reports from Nueva York.”

“Sure, we heard them,” said the dark-skinned man standing near the woman, “but that doesn’t mean we must believe them. You know our American friends—always prone to exaggeration. It’s their proclivity for romanticizing crime.”

“Our job’s not to evaluate, Habib. All we have to do is follow orders.”

“Suit yourself, Sergeant.” Habib and the woman moved away. Others came aboard to take their place.

The silvery figures continued their inspection of the aisles, moving together toward the back of the plane.

“I overheard,” said a burly newcomer to the sergeant. “What is the big deal with this guy? There’s going to be hell to pay when this hits the media. Imagine snucking a whole plane to take one man!”

“It won’t reach the media,” said the sergeant, “unless somebody opens their big, fat mouth. Then there will be hell to pay.”

“Don’t look at me, Sarge,” said the questioner. He paused to adjust an elderly man who’d fallen awkwardly from his seat. “I think this one’s got a broken arm. How are they going to keep the hospital cases secret?”

“Not our concern,” said the sergeant. “That’s in the lap of the Chief and Airport Security, thank goodness. All we’ve got to do is find this bloke.”

Find him they did, several minutes later.

“Looks like he made a run for the exit,” suggested one of the argent police. "He must’ve held his bloody breath forever.”

“Not long enough.” The sergeant eyed Eric Abbott’s motionless form speculatively. He certainly didn’t look like much, he thought. “Looks like he gave it a good try, though.” He glanced back up the aisle.

“His ticket says he was in seat eighteen. Here he is back at forty-four. That's a helluva run under the gas. Doesn’t take but a whiff of that stuff to put you under.”

“Maybe he was back here to go to the loo," suggested one of the bobbies.

“Could be. We won’t find out.” The sergeant checked his chronometer. “Time to haul him out of here. We can thank our stars for this rotten weather. Hides us from the terminal.” He reached down and slipped Abbott’s legs under his arms.

“How come you get the light end?” grumbled the next bobbie in line.

"Because I’m a sergeant and you’re only a corporal. Put some back into it.”

Together they wrestled the unconscious form up the aisle. Other silver-suited commandos made way for them, commenting as they passed.

“’E’s nothin’ to look at,” muttered one. “Bloody lot of trouble for nothin’.”

“Aye,” said Charlene, who’d returned from first class to have a glimpse of their quarry. “Good-looking, though, in a quiet kind of way.”

“You might not think so if half of what 'e did in Nueva were true.”

“Can’t you see their faces when they hear how easy a time of it we had bringing him in?” They shared a chuckle as they followed the limp body out of the plane and down the mobile stairway.

Abbott was hustled into an idling, unmarked van. Inside he was slipped onto a waiting pallet. Straps were crossed over his body from neck to ankles. Arms and legs merited separate treatment. Two women in white monitored the captive’s vital signs. If he showed any movement they were ready and prepared to insure that he didn’t wake up.

The van’s engine rose to a soft whine against the rain. Behind it, police commandos were exiting the plane in a steady stream. Several had already unfastened their headgear and pushed it back as they walked toward a waiting bus. They chatted easily among themselves, pleased that the operation had gone so smoothly.

Much ado about nothing, as one said to a companion.

XIV

He was drowning in one of Lisa’s eyes. It was explosive bright blue. New blue, ice blue, Blume blue as he’d once told her. The blue was not surprising. The eye was all water, which was.

He’d fallen helplessly toward it, arms flailing, legs kicking, tumbling over and over until he struck the limpid surface and plunged ten meters deep. Kicking furiously, he swam upward, clawing for air, until he broke the surface of the eye.

Painfully he began swimming for shore, aiming himself at the high, fleshy ridge which bordered the cold liquid. A silvery moon lit the surface from high overhead. You could hear the sound of tears lapping the lower shore as they fell from the corner of the ophthalmic ocean, falling upward toward the sky, where they blurred the crescent moon.

As he turned to rest awhile by swimming on his back, he found he could see the great eyelid, its delicate black barbs curving upward into the night like the ribs of some vanished alien building. They trembled delicately as she cried.

It was a wonder that in the darkness the water held its bright blue, a clear blue the color of water viewed through arctic pack ice. He knew the strain was telling on her as she fought to keep from blinking and crushing him, and he tried to swim faster, but the water was thick and cloying and he was tired, so tired.

So he blinked instead. The night sky disappeared, to be replaced by a vague, watery haze. He didn’t open his eyes all the way, only a crack, just enough to ascertain that he was conscious and aware.

There were voices around him, deep rumblings in the air. Mumbled syllables passed like swift verse among unseen shapes. He lay still and listened and peeked, the gauze that masked his vision slowly dissolving away.

Some kind of hospital. He was in some kind of hospital that was more than a hospital, because the windows were crossed with metal bars. He found he could look down at himself without moving his head. Straps crossed his chest, and when he twitched one leg he felt others restraining him there: one at the thigh, one at the knee, a third at the foreleg, and a last securing his ankle.

There were other beds, most of them occupied by people who supplied the voices he heard. Some were sitting up, most lying down. Light came from long fluorescent sticks set in a high ceiling. The walls were not painted so much as they were enameled a pale blue. It looked like solid plastic, but he knew it was only paint.

Two or three of the voices around him were shouting. They made no more sense than those that passed in whispers. Occasionally a figure in white passed the foot of his bed, ignoring him. Some were male, some female. Red chevrons decorated the sleeves of their uniforms. They reminded him of the bars that blocked the high windows.

After a while two new figures appeared and approached his resting place. As soon as he determined they were heading toward him, he closed his eyes and held himself as motionless as possible. He could hear them breathing above him, could feel the pressure of their stares against his face.

“You really think all these straps are necessary?” asked a feminine voice.

“I don’t know, Doctor,” a man replied. “I wasn’t consulted when he was brought in.”

“It seems extreme,” the woman said. The concern in her voice was professional rather than personal. “I don't see how he can do anyone any harm when he’s so heavily sedated.”

“I agree, Doctor. It makes more work for the duty nurse, but the instructions they gave us were explicit.”

“What a waste of time and money.” There was a brief pause and he heard a wrist terminal beep twice. “He’s got enough topalamine and endozite-B in him to keep a platoon of soldiers harmless Risky enough.”

“I told them,” said the man, “but they didn’t seem to care if he recovered full motor function or not. They just want him kept unconscious and alive.

“You know, sometimes I hate this damn job, Doctor. Sometimes I think of quitting to take an outside job.”

“Take it easy, Charles,” said the woman. “We’re monitoring him constantly. He'll come out of it okay."

“Maybe he will, but there's no medical reason why his body should have to deal with injections at these levels. It’s bordering on toxicity. I won’t be held responsible if something happens.”

“Nothing’s going to happen, Charles,” said the woman soothingly. “In any case, he’s not a European citizen. By nine tonight there’ll be a team in from North America to take over. Then he’ll be out of our hands and we’ll never see him again.”

“No, but I’ll still have to think about him,” the man muttered. A longer silence, then, “I wonder what the hell he did to merit this kind of treatment? I wonder what he’s wanted for?”

“I’ve no idea, Charles, and I don’t care to know. He may be a murderer or simply an embezzler. We don’t judge, we only treat. Frankly, I share your concerns. I’ll be glad to see him go.”