Rice leaned forward, seething. "Her existence works against us!" The chair arm his hand was gripping cracked suddenly. Helman felt his own chair arm. It was solid.

Rice sat back. "Think, assassin. How shall you rid us of her?"

"I'll need a day. I need to see the townhouse. Possibly the lab they go to. Make contact. Check the neighbourhood.

For myself."

"If a day is what you need, then by all means take it." Rice stood up, and went for his coat. "The townhouse address is marked on the back of the photograph. The university building also. You may keep the map of the city. I shall take back everything else."

Helman removed a standard folded map from the pile and checked the address on the photo. Rice gathered the rest of the material together and placed it back in the cheap plastic case.

"I shall see you tomorrow evening. I trust you shall have your plan ready by then so we are not forced to turn to someone else."

Helman said nothing. Rice took the case, and left.

Helman stood under the shower for half an hour, alternating between steaming hot water and straight cold. Too much had happened to him in the last forty-eight hours. The package and phone call in New Hampshire. The useless cat-and-mouse game ending in New York. And now the two briefings by the oddest people he had ever dealt with--and the most dangerous. Men who wore unobtrusive make-up for no particular reason. Black-masked people who were addressed as 'Lord'. His mind swam with the confusion of it.

Finally he lay back on one of the beds and thought about the closing. Demolishing the house with explosives would be ideal in any other situation, but not appropriate for Adrienne St. Clair. The conditions must be met exactly! they had told him. One way or another, Helman was going to have to get himself close enough to Adrienne St. Clair to decapitate her.

Sleep, when it came, was not easy. And it ended in screams.

Ten.

Silently, it had slipped up through the open stairs and wrapped wetly around his ankles. In that instant of transcendent terror, the darkness below him vanished and he saw clearly what waited for him in the basement.

Their masks fluttered from their faces like black flying things. Their make-up rippled and dripped like melting wax.

They were all together, waiting for him, down there. They were smiling at him and he saw ...

It was his own screaming that woke him.

Helman thrashed at the sweat-soaked sheet wrapped up and twisted around his feet, and sat upright, trembling. He was in the delicate transition between sleep and consciousness. His brain held the secret of King and Rice and whispered it to him. He shook with the knowledge of it.

But the sun was streaming through the slightly open curtains and traffic noises growled somewhere near. The knowledge fell away like dust, leaving only its warning, its feeling of dread.

Helman showered again and dressed. He had one more phone call to make. His broker, Max Telford. The person the people in the masks had referred to, but never named. The anomaly must be checked.

Two months ago, after the Delvecchio closing, Helman had told Telford his decision to retire. Telford had taken it well. Helman felt the old man had a type of fatherly feeling toward him. On one hand, he had complained about how short-handed Helman was leaving him; how difficult it was to recruit professionals instead of lads who had seen too many movies and wanted to be hit men-'torpedoes' Telford called them, disparagingly. Telford thought they'd be better off being mercenaries in Africa or Central America, so they could blast away to their hearts' content and never have to worry about witnesses, or killing civilians. Yet, on the other hand, Helman felt Telford was glad to see him quit the business alive. Telford had handled twenty of Helman's twenty-three closings. Helman had no precise statistics on the rest of Telford's crew, but he felt his success rate was a record. Even so, Helman had learned long ago that feelings were not to be trusted. Perhaps three months ago, Telford did feel like a father to him. But Helman knew how quickly situations could change in his business. Telford might have felt pressure from one organisation or another, and as a result, turned over his 'insurance' on Helman to representatives of the group from New York.

Everyone in the business had 'insurance.' A secret cache of information, names and dates, that would implicate and endanger as many associates as possible in the event of an untimely, unwarranted death. Telford kept it on each of his crew. Helman kept it on Telford. It was an accepted and acknowledged fact of the business. And necessary. An assassin without insurance represented a final, easy-to-take-care-of loose end. An assassin without insurance was a dead man.

Helman sat on the edge of a bed in his hotel room and placed a long distance call to a restaurant in Miami. Telford owned several seafood restaurants there, and operated his 'brokerage' from the offices at the back of the largest one.

Tourists came and went as Telford plotted murder above the kitchen. If Telford had released his insurance about Helman, an action usually taken by lawyers upon a client's untimely death, Helman would see to it that the release had not been unjustified. Feelings were not to be trusted. He would have another closing to attend to after he finished with the St. Clair woman: Max Telford.

The phone rang five times. Helman heard the receiver being lifted. On any other phone line into the restaurant, a voice would identify the restaurant by name and ask what the caller wanted. On the line Helman had called, the voice said only, "Go ahead."

"This is Mr. Bryant. I want to make a reservation for next Wednesday at 8:45, for nine. Actually, there will be at least six of us. We may be joined by up to five more. However a reservation for nine should be about right." Helman waited for the voice to respond with the second phase of the signal.

"Our pleasure, Mr. Bryant. Is there anything else the maitre d' may prepare for you?"

"I'd like it charged to my card, number 416-"

The voice interrupted, as it should. "That's quite all right, Mr. Bryant. I'm sure we have it on file. Is this a party?"

"A surprise party. Well be bringing a special cake." "Wonderful. We'll expect you Wednesday then. Goodbye, Mr. Bryant."

Helman hung up but kept his hand on the receiver. It had been the most urgent message he had ever placed into the system. If the situation in Miami was normal, Telford would be informed of who called, the urgency, and the phone and room number that Helman had given in the reservation information, within minutes. The return call should be immediate.

Two minutes later, Helman lifted the receiver in the middle of the phone's first ring. The situation in Miami was normal. Or was arranged to appear normal. Telford's rasping voice was on the other end.

"So what's the big 'surprise', Granger? You coming out of retirement?" His voice was friendly, perhaps even happy.

But Telford was a professional, too. Feelings, as well as appearances, were the same.

Telford had also called Helman by name. That meant the call was being routed through at least two other phone lines in the Florida system. One of them would hold a scrambler system. Helman could not be sure if his hotel phone was secure, but no one would be able to trace or tap a thing from Telford's end. Telford would assume that since Helman had given his number, the line was safe.

"I've been forced out, Max." Helman paused. Letting the seriousness sink in, provided Telford wasn't the man behind it in the first place.

"Go on." Telford's voice had changed. A clinical edge had crept in. He understood the implications. It was the reaction Helman had expected, and hoped for.

"It appears my insurance was cashed. I'm hoping it was a policy I didn't know about."

"Screw it, Granger. You retired. I put the lid on your file. Are you being pressured? You think I've sold you out?"

Telford was clearly agitated. Some of it was because Helman seemed to think Telford had betrayed him. Most of it because, if Helman did believe Telford had turned on him, Helman would have no option but to release his own insurance on Telford. Things could get messy. Telford had had to do it before, but he hated to assign a closing on one of his own crew.

"I hope not, Max. I'm going to give you some details and I want you to tell me where I've gone wrong. Because if it's not me, it's got to be someone else." It's got to be you, Max, he thought.

Telford stayed quiet on the other end. His whole operation depended on what Helman said in the next few minutes.

If some of his other crew ever turned on him the way Helman was threatening to, it would cause trouble. But Helman he knew, could, and would, destroy him.

In coded words, Helman quickly told his story: the insurance in the package, the offer to purchase in New York, and the closing in Toronto. When he had finished, Telford jumped in immediately.

"Think it through. Granger. You never told me how you got the Delvecchio woman out of the house. I never even knew you did get her out of the house. I thought you probably decoyed her while she was driving some moody place or another. How could I know about the fish or the milk?"

Telford could have arranged surveillance of Helman during the Delvecchio closing. If it had been carried out by the New York people who met him in Times Square, Helman knew he would never have been aware of it. But the desperation in Telford's voice was convincing him that his ex-broker had nothing to do with it. At least knowingly. At some point, Helman knew, he was going to have to take a chance to get out of this. He decided to follow his instincts.

"You're right, Max. I knew that. But I had to hear you say it."

The relief in the old man's voice was evident.

"So what can I do for you, Granger? How can I help?"

"I need information on the group in New York."

"Mafia?"

"That's what I thought at first. They seem too sophisticated. Possibly a European organisation. Remember, they want a ritual killing. See if you can get anything on that. And Max, I need someone to check out my sister and her kids.

I'm sure they're being watched. I think they're the guarantee on the closing."

"Jesus, Granger. What's it coming to? Getting family involved?" In many ways, Max Telford was a very old man, belonging to a simpler time, when there were rules. "I'll get someone out there to check around right away. And I will get that information. Count on it." "I will, Max. When will you get back to me?"

"Later on this morning, Granger. I'll get this stuff started right away. Then I have to take care of some of my own business." Telford laughed. "Hey, Granger. I'm a solid member of the business community down here. I've got three restaurants. City politicians want to meet with me. Can you believe it? The guys I have to see this morning are two priests or something. Want me to support a day-care centre. Help the kiddies."

Granger smiled at that. Every sign of normalcy strengthened his belief in Telford's innocence.

"Good for you, Max. Good luck then. I'll be waiting for your call."

"I won't let you down, Granger. Face it. You're one of the special ones, okay?"

"Thanks, Max."

Helman felt relief. The last of the night terror had left him now that he knew he was no longer in this alone.

He ordered breakfast through room service and read the morning papers, disappointed that only one had a worthwhile crossword. Then he lay back on the bed and waited for the phone to ring.

The housekeeping maids woke him just after one. They were knocking on the door, asking if they could make up the room.

Helman sent them away. He phoned the desk, but there were no messages.

Telford had said he would phone back in the morning. It was the afternoon. The tenseness returned.

Helman phoned the special reservation line in Miami again. It rang five times. It rang ten times. Then he heard a metallic click and the phone began to ring again, sounding farther off, as though the circuit had been forwarded.

This time it rang three times. Then a flat computer voice said, "The number you have dialled is not in service. Please check your directory and dial again."

Helman was certain he hadn't misdialled, but he tried once more. It happened again.

He called the restaurant through a regular line. It rang fifteen times before it was answered. Helman recognised the man who answered as the same one who had answered the special line earlier that morning. But his voice had changed. There was panic.

"I want to speak with Max Telford," Helman said.

There was a pause. It sounded as if the receiver had been covered and people were talking. Something was happening in Miami, Helman felt it the same way he had when he had seen the van pull away from his sister's farm in New Hampshire.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Telford is not in the office this morning. May I take-"

"I've already talked to Telford this morning. I-"

The man on the other end turned his head away from his receiver and shouted out to someone else.

"This may be one of them. Get the extension."

"The line clicked. A second voice began.

"Who is this?"

"I want to talk to Max Telford. I've already talked to him once today and..."

"That's impossible." The voice was abrupt. Final. "Telford's dead."

Helman froze. Just hours ago Telford had offered him help. Telford had made him not be alone.

"Who is this?" the voice repeated.

"I'm Bryant," Helman said, using his code name. "Mr. Bryant. The first man to answer the phone took a reservation from me today. This morning. Max called me back. He was fine. What's happening there?"

The receivers were covered again. More muffled voices. Helman felt helpless, a pawn of the tenuous link of the phone wire. A new voice came on the line.

"Talk fast, Helman, or you're going to be closed so fast you won't see tomorrow. The number's been traced and we've got the alert on right now."

Madness. "Who are you? What are you talking about?" "I'm the last person you may ever meet in your life, Helman. Telford gave me some bullshit story about checking up on an organisation commissioning ritual closings. He said you told him about it. Decapitation he said."

"What's going on there?"

"So after he talks to you he goes into his office and we find him half an hour later. Jesus Christ. The fuckers took off his head with a wire, Helman. A fucking wire!"

"Who? The priests?" It was preposterous, but it was the only thing he could think to say.

"That's it, Helman. Who told you about the priests? Why'd you turn on him, Helman? What could he have done to you to deserve this?"

"Believe me. I don't know. I asked for information. The same people are after me-"

"That's not all who's going to be after you, Helman. Telford's been murdered. When his insurance goes public you're going to have-"

Helman heard another voice shout out in the distance. He heard the receiver fall to the floor. More scuffling sounds and shouts. Orders. Then he was sure he heard the deadly whisper of silenced guns, followed by heavy thuds. He was listening to insanity.

He heard the Miami receiver being lifted. A new voice.

"Mr. Helman? Nothing to worry about on this end."

The phone went dead.

Helman trembled.

He had placed one phone call to an old friend, and now that man was dead. His head squeezed off by a garrotte used by men disguised as priests. Another phone call, and he had heard at least three others shot to death.

The madness snared him, twisting him around. He had reached out for help and found himself deeper in the maelstrom with still no bearings; no way out except to continue with the St. Clair closing.