Andre regarded the bomb with a shrug. “It’s dangerous, I’ll give you that.

Sarah grinned. “I’m not a cartoon character. Andre. I’m not writhing in ecstasy over a bomb and failing to respect its awesome destructive power, I assure you. Oh, you’re absolutely right This device is dangerous. But it’s perfect poetry, chiseled down and refined, so different from that fifteen-foot-tall monstrosity that Banner built in the desert- She ran her hands over the opaque green metal that topped the device. “And if I were to take it apart, and lay the pieces out, every piece would proclaim it to be an American creation.” She gestured to two agents, who lifted the bomb up and shoved it into the crawl space. The two men began to clamber in, followed by Andre and Sarah.

“What do you mean?^v Andre said.

Sarah chuckled, crawling by the light of the lamps on her head. Andre, it wouldn’t do any good to just blow up the consulate, now would it? This bomb is a calling card. Our person inside SAFE has provided me with everything the designers needed to riddle every part of that device with identifying serial numbers—SAFE serial numbers. To all intents and purposes, the materials are SAFE. And whatever is removed after it goes off will reveal that.”

“Commander, we’re about there,” a voice crackled in Sarah’s ear.

“Fine,” she said, “let me handle the entrance to the tunnel.”

The two men pressed against the sides of the crawl-space as Sarah pushed through and between them, finally moving in front of them, passing the gamma device as she did. It smiled green and softly humming as she passed it. Sarah blew a few strands of hair out of her face and reached the end of the crawl space

There was a hole made of Sheetrock in the end of the crawlspace, through which poured a steady stream of white light. She could make out white-painted concrete walls on the other side. She breathed a few times and closed her eyes, holding up a hand behind her, telling everyone to wait. Sarah did everything on her own time.

Pebbles chewed at her elbows. She blinked and that pain went away. She had scuffed the top of her head while crawling past her two agents. That pain too went away. She was lying on her belly in a hole, a bomb at her ankles and a silencer coming out of her vest and into her hand. Sarah breathed again, felt her body become like a wave of energy moving as one thing instead of a pile of interconnected bone and muscles and flesh. She was one thing, a fluid, corded wave of energy. She flipped over on her back and brought her knees up to her chest, and let her boots fly back, then forward.

A chunk of sheetrock burst out into the tunnel. Sarah did not hesitate in following through; she shimmied through the hole in the wall. The hole was about three feet off the ground, and she dropped out and crouched in the bits of sheetrock, looking around. Sarah wound her arm several times at the entrance of the tunnel and heard her team coming out, just as the sound of running footsteps in the delivery tunnel echoed around the comer.

Sarah slowly walked towards the comer. Around the comer, there would be two guards next to the delivery elevator, spending most of their time signing invoices and allowing brie and vodka to go up to the consulate. They would be out of practice. Right now, she thought as she stopped next to the comer, they have heard a strange crashing noise from where I have just kicked through the wall of the tunnel, and now they are running this way. They have their guns in front of them, their arms pumping in sync with their feet. They are scared.

Sarah looked back at her man Andre and Andre nodded. As the footsteps got closer to the comer, Sarah dove.

She hit the ground as the two men turned the comer. The first one gasped loudly, looking down, dancing awkwardly to keep from getting his legs caught up in Sarah’s limbs.

Sarah’s silenced gun flared once and bore a hole through the underside of one guard’s chin, and she rose and slunk to the side as his body struck the ground and she fired again, taking out the second man. Sarah hol-stered her sidearm and stepped over them, motioning to her team, moving on to the elevator.

Two plastic chairs sat by the elevator entrance, the forty-hour-per-week home of the dead sentries. Sarah bent down by one of the plastic chairs, lifting a styrofoam cup. She raised an eyebrow. “Coffee.” Within moments the maintenance elevator was opened. “Andre,” she asked, “how long until you can have the timer set?”

. “No time at all,” he said, as the agents rolled the device onto the elevator.

Sarah drank down the dead man’s coffee and winced. It was bitter. “It’s your show, Andre,” she said. “But I trust you.” Sarah looked at her watch. “Stick to the schedule, you guys get out of here, get Andre on the roof across the street, and make URSA proud.”

Sarah patted the Trotsky-bearded man on the shoulder and slunk away, back to the crawlspace. She had an appointment to keep. “Hell,” she said as she turned back briefly, “make me proud and everything will be fine. ’

Betty stepped out of the ladies' room and into the hallway. Behind her, the glass doors out to the garden patio shrank. The hallway took on the curious yellow hue that indoor lights have just as the sun begins to go down and the eye becomes aware of the dueling light sources. She trusted that SAFE had heard her conversation with Nadia. Of course, not much would come of it, she suspected. Nadia was too far removed from Emil now for any involvement on her part to be of much use, short of ruining the woman’s life.

Don’t kid yourself. They’re not above that. This is the government we’re talking about. Betty shrugged inwardly as she approached the security desk at the entrance. Part of her wanted to believe that SAFE was on the side of the angels. They were, after all, instrumental in rescuing Betty from a rogue secret agent who had kidnapped her to keep Bruce in line. But most of her, the Army brat in her knew all too well that government agencies were not above using people for what they jokingly thought of as “the greater good.” Right now, she wanted nothing more than to go home and peel the white tape and microphone off of her chest.

The security guard sitting behind the large, semicircular desk was a different one from the man who had let her pass on the way in. Of course. The shifts had changed. She’d better hurry if she were going to make her six-thirty class. She nodded at the dark-haired Russian behind the desk and stepped towards the exit, which stood adjacent to the metal-detector entrance.

“Excuse me,” came the voice of the guard. “Ma’am?”

Betty looked back. “Yes?”

“I’m afraid I can’t let you leave just yet.”

Sean Morgan walked along the carpeted halls of the Helicarrier to Tom Hampton’s GammaTrac station and stuck his head in the door. “Tom?”

The back of Tom’s head was silhouetted against the green GammaTrac screen. Tom typed away as another screen next to him lit up with the increased noise level in the room from Morgan’s call. Tom looked over his shoulder and Morgan entered, signing. “What’s the story with the Abomination?”

Tom indicated a swiveling stool next to his and Morgan lowered his nattily attired self onto it, crossing his arms. “I think he’s under again, ’ Tom signed.

The technician went to plug in his voice modulator but Morgan waved at him, saying, “No, that’s fine, I prefer your real voice. Under, you said?”

Tom nodded. “The Abomination is lying low. His marker hasn’t shown since the thing at the airport.” Morgan frowned. “Great.” He looked at a stapled sheet of papers on Tom’s console. “What’s that?”

Tom picked up the report and handed it to him. “Jo dropped this off earlier. I think you have a copy on your desk as we speak,” Tom shrugged, signing. “It’s Gamma Team’s analysis based on what Banner told us about the last part of the proverb—the sower of discord among brethren.”

“Blonsky’s next move. What did they decide?”

Tom grimaced. His long fingers flew, speaking. “You ought to ask Jo. But between you and me, I don’t think they’ve discovered a great deal. I mean, the funny thing is, Blonsky keeps switching between being and punishing Abominations. So the next Abomination is sowing discord among brethren. So what?”

“Right,” nodded Morgan, signing. “Is he the sower,

or the punisher of the sower? Or both? And who are the brethren to suffer the discord?’ ’

“There’s a lot of ideas in there,” Tom signed, tilting his head toward the report. “Could be anything. Congress. The UN. Even the Soviet Union, that’s Blonsky’s brethren, But it’s all guesswork.”

Morgan sighed, stood up. “I’ll read my own. Let me know if anything happens. And Tom, run a diagnostic on the equipment. I don’t want the Abomination suddenly appearing where we couldn’t see him, okay?”

“Right, Colonel,” Tom said. The screen next to him danced with light, reporting Sean Morgan’s fast-falling footsteps as the SAFE director exited the officelike station.

Tom shrugged and sat back, regarding the monitor. The green hand swept around the screen, the green blip of the Hulk wavering in Westchester, no other gamma readings inside. He pursed his lips and whistled idly, or thought he did. Whatever sound he produced, he had no idea. He reached out and tapped on the screen. Magic words, why not? Hello? Blonsky? Appear; please. Open sezzme.

The green arm moved over the screen. Tom focused on the sweep, slowed down the vision in his brain, watched the tiny pixels of green. Westchester, the Hulk blipped. The island, nothing. The Hudson River, nothing.

The arm jumped. Nothing. The arm swept around again and Tom raised an eyebrow as he saw it again, a tiny nonblip, a variation, a blankout when the arm passed over the Hudson. A ghost-blip. What the—?

Tom turned to the darkened monitor to his left and brought it to life, a sinking feeling coming over him. Someone inside, someone... He logged onto the screen and entered his password. Another second and lines of green code swept up from the bottom of the screen, flying past him. Let’s say you come to rely on a machine to tell you where the monsters are, he thought to himself. And let’s say you’re an idiot. It took another minute to find the subroutine that allowed for identification of large concentrations of gamma radiation, a minute past that to find the sets of received “names” for those concentrations. It was impossible, though, to see if anything had been changed. Tom looked back at the sweeping hand. It was clearer, now, now that he was looking for it. Each time the arm swept around, there was a shadow of a blip, a bare fade of the green, like a deliberate cloak

Tom called up the modification dates for the various routines. Let’s see, March 2nd, we were putting the last touches, I typed in the names the other day that was March 4th.... So far, so good. The dates on the labelling subroutine read March 4th, as expected. Tom frowned. Not there. He brought up the main routine.

March 8th. Tom felt a buzzing in his brain, alarms going off. He could spend forever picking through this to see what was added or changed or he could simply switch to primary backup. Tom waited another two minutes as the GammaTrac screen went offline and dark. Then, after a moment, it came up again. And read exactly the same.

Tom sat back and brought up the modification dates on the left screen* already knowing what he was going to see. The changes of March 8th were there, too. Whoever had done their work had not been stupid. And something tells me checking the secondary backup will yield the same results.

Tom pushed away from his console and stepped quickly to the door, moving fast down the hall. He thought about calling Morgan as he got on the lift down to his locker, but he wanted to have another look at this before blowing the whistle. This was his project, how stupid did he want to look? No. He would fix it first.

Tom keyed the combination into his locker, swaying a bit. He blinked. He was feeling a bit woozy. As usual, the world swayed in silence, steam rising out of the showers adjacent to the lockers. He saw a few agents with boxing gloves over their shoulders coming into the locker room as his locker door swung open and he rummaged in his duffel bag. He drew out a rolled-up sweat sock, turned it inside out. The magnetic tape inside fell into his hand and he slammed the locker shut, turning to race back to the lift. The fact was he wasn’t sure why he kept a backup of the routines in his locker, for his own purposes. Perhaps because it was, ultimately, his own neck on the line.

The buzzing in Tom’s brain continued. He rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand as the lift opened up and he stepped back into the corridor, headed for his station. The walls blurred past him as he moved, only making his headache worse. Tom turned into the doorway and sat down at the station, flipping a switch and causing the whole station to go dark, slamming the tape into a shiny black maw underneath the screen.

Another two minutes and the screen was dancing again. The green arm swept majestically across the screen. Westchester: the Hulk. The Hudson River: the Abomination. There you are. Someone’s been hiding you. Tom shook his head and flipped on his voice modulator and then the intercom, keying in Morgan’s extension. “Colonel Morgan, you should....”

He looked back at the screen, his head pounding as the room swum like putty and he focused on the green blip. It was growing. It was moving fast, towards the center of the screen. The blip was getting larger. “You better ... have a...”

He choked, feeling the bile in his throat, his eyelids heavy. The blotch of green grew larger, closing in, moving straight up, very fast He felt a tug and looked over to see a pair of wire -cutters, severing the wires of his voice modulator.

He’s coming... he’s coming ...

Tom spun around in his chair, his head swimming. He saw the silencer on the gun as it spat once, flaring in the phosphorescent light.

Sean Morgan shot out of his office, jogging down the hall. Tom had started to say something and had been cut off. He stopped jogging and threw a hand to his forehead as the first wave of nausea hit. He shook his head, looking up at the vents. He had been in the business long enough to know when he was being gassed. Hell. He kept moving, taking short breaths. He slapped a panic button as he turned the comer and got on the lift to Tom’s level. As the lift doors closed, he heard the alarm bells begin to ring.

Morgan spat into the mike on his throat. ‘Bridge? What’s going on?” No answer. The lift whined to a stop, opened up, and Morgan felt himself spilling into the hall. Morgan thought about racing up the bridge immediately but had to check on Tom first. He turned a comer and stepped over a uniformed SAFE agent slumped against the wall. Morgan continued his short bursts of breath and dropped, running a pair of fingers over the agent’s neck. He felt a pulse. In Morgan’s mind, an animal growled in the distance, the a mai sleep, waiting to devour him, a fog lowering for a moment over his brain. H shook it off. Keep moving,

Morgan slammed against the wall as the whole of the Helicarrier rocked with an impact like a missile hitting the underbelly. He felt one of the lights along the edge of the wall bust, sparks flying, as the toe of his right shoe crushed it. He pushed off. “Bridge,” he growled, the red carpet moving fast under his jogging feet, ‘ ‘anyone ...

masks ... something hit us; we’re under attack___”

Tom’s GammaTrac station was up ahead on the left. He reached the door and propped himself against it, head swimming as he turned into the room and saw that the lights were out.

Morgan’s eyes adjusted, his head pounding with the sound of the alarm, the animal sleep beckoning. The dark room was aglow with the green of the GammaTrac, and the first thing Morgan saw was the sweeping green arm on the GammaTrac screen, moving at a turgid clip, keeping time with the blaring alarms that now reverberated throughout the Helicarrier. Tom was staling at him, twisted backward, shoulders againsl the console, a bole in his head where his right eye should be, and each time the green arm swept it lit up, from underneath, the red glop on the screen.

Not good. Not good. Danger\ Will Robinson.

Morgan moved forward, feeling the nausea hit him, the fog filling his mind, curtains lowering over his eyes. “Tom. ip’

He bent forward, leaning on the dark console, and filmed around when he heard someone move behind him in the dark. A figure in a jumpsuit and a gas mask moved into the green-glimmering light.

Morgan coughed, losing the battle against the animal. “Jo...”

Something metal flashed and he felt a bony hand grab him by the collar and throw him to the ground. “Don’t Ml asleep, Morgan, I want vou to know.”

“Jo...”

“Allow me to reintroduce myself,’.’¹ she said, straddling his chest, a razor in her hand, flashing like a geisha fen next to her eyes and the grille-covered mouth. Her voice burst through the mask, muffled and harsh. ‘My real name is Sarah Josef. I believe you knew my father.”

‘What do you mean, I can’t leave yet?” Betty looked at the guard. The tag on his chest said David Selznick.

“Well,” Selznick said, “we got this message about you being some sort of...” he chuckled, as if a bit embarrassed.

“What?”

“Professor Gaynor, you wouldn’t happen to have any identification on you, would you?”

Betty eyed the security guard warily. “I have a class to get to, Mr. Selznick.”

. til understand. If you please.”: He indicated Betty’s handbag.

Betty groused, opening her handbag. “I got in without any problem, sir,” she said, rummaging through her bag.

Sne found her wallet as she heard a tinny voice on a headset next to Selznick: “Selznick, we’re in place here...”

“You know,” said Betty, looking up, “I left my wallet outside with Nadia. I was showing her pictures. I’ll go back for it.”

She turned and began walking fast toward the patio. She heard the security guard call after her. “Ah, that won’t be necessary, Mrs. Banner.”

Betty stopped and turned around. The man was smiling, genuinely smiling. In his hand was a gun.

The patio doors burst open down the hall and Nadia came in, a pair of men on either arm, dragging her as the woman cursed loudly, ‘Let me go! Of all the nerve/’ Nadia saw Betty standing there, backing up, and called out, “Greg! Greg!”

Greg Vranjesevic’s office door opened and his assistant, Krupke, looked out. He stood there in the doorway, in silence, a strange look on his face.

Nadia stopped before him, fighting off the two men who held firmly to her elbows. “Krupke, what in nell is going on?”

Krupke stared at her, blinking. Then, in one long, fluid motion, the man fell forward on his face.

Nadia screamed, dropping to the suited man. There was something metallic and bloody sticking out of his back.

‘There, there, Nadia/' came the voice of the man she knew as Timm. “Don’t mind our friend. Mr. Krupke is just dead.

Timm emerged from the ambassador’s office, one arm around Greg Vranjesevic, a gun to the man’s ribs. The athletic ambassador looked with an ashen face at Nadia and nodded to her as the two men swept out in front of Nadia and began walking down the hallway. “David?” Timm called out to the security guard. “You can play it, now.”

The two URSA agents who had Nadia moved into the lobby near the security desk behind Greg and Timm as Selznick hit a button on the security desk in front of him and a tape began to play.

BaGreetirtgs, comrades,” came the voice of a woman. “This is Sarah Josef of URSA. This tape is being played to inform you of the part you are going to play in URSA’s plans, and, frankly, to pass the time for you as you sit out your last hours. We have taken control of the consulate.” Greg howled in outrage and broke free from Timm, diving for a panic button on Selznick’s console. The consulate erupted in the blaring sound of security alarms, red lights on the walls beginning to whip around. Selznick brought his gun down on Greg’s hand and the man yelped as two more security guards came running up from the east wing. The men reached the lobby, guns drawn, and stopped to regard the security- guard.

As Timm and Selznick wasted no time pumpmg two shots each into the security guards, Betty moved. “Please,” Selznick said to the two corpses, “if you don’t mind, we have a message to listen to.”

Betty heard the ladies’ room door shut behind her and Selznick calling out, almost amused, “All right, shut that alarm off. And someone find the Banner woman. She seems to have run off.”

And blaring across the PA system, the URSA woman droned on.

Ten years ago •

found a coffee shop, entered, bought coffee in a plastic cup and a newspaper from the vendor next to the door. He wandered a few yards down the street and took his place on the stoop, shielded from the rain by the awning of an apartment building.

Paris had just gotten hot again, and it was time to get out. Morgan did not look at his watch, did not wish to appear hurried. He waited for Mickey. The dead courier in the apartment building a stone’s throw away would be discovered within the quarter hour. He had some time, though not much.

Six minutes later, at half past two in the afternoon, a taxicab turned the comer and pulled up in front of the stoop, splashing water onto Morgan’s shoes. Morgan gulped down the remainder of his coffee as a woman got out, walked up the stoop, and rang the bell. Morgan crossed her path as he got into the cab. Morgan slid in, and Darla moved over a bit in the back seat, giving him room.

“My God, you’re soaking,” she said.

“Let’s go. ”

“Really?” Mickey’s eyes met his in the rearview mirror. “You don’t think I should just drive around the block a few times?”

“Fine with me,” Morgan said. “It was clean. Smoothest operation I’ve ever seen,” he lied, as the cab pulled out into traffic and was lost in a sea of nondescript cars.

“You get him?”

“I got him.” Morgan smiled. “I’m tellin’ ya, Mick.

I need a challenge. These guys think running a double game is easy, but man, they’ve never been hustled by the best.”

“Ooh,” Mickey winked at Darla, who was now nuzzling up against Morgan. She was wealing a dashing beret, very underground-chic, presumably on the notion that no one would suspect a person who dressed like a spy of being a spy. “Listen to the man,” said Mickey. “Thinks he’s the Muhammad Ah of mole hunting.”

“Bite your tongue,” Darla laughed, opening her purse. “Jack Dempsey,” she said, “or no one at all.” She pulled out a manila envelope and tore it open, removing a rubber-banded bundle of papers. Mickey reached back as Darla handed him his papers, and she gave Morgan his. ‘All right, gentlemen, this is the drill. Sean and I are married and Mickey’s the little brother.” “Sorry, Mick,^Morgan said.

“I’m used to it by now,”- Mickey said, zipping through a wet intersection, leaning on the horn as he did. “May as well just call me the chauffeur.”

“I promise, next time, you get the girl,” Morgan said. “Oh, Captain Morgan,” Darla clicked her tongue, “trying to get rid of me?”

p?‘Not at all,” Morgan said. “Just trying to spread the wealth around. 1 figure we can dig up a companion to play Mickey’s wife. How about it, Mick?” Morgan sat up, leaning over the front seat. “That new girl, Cecilia. Helluva driver, I hear.”

“No good,” Mickey shook his head. “She’s a driver, what am I gonna do?”

was kinda thinkin’ you’d get promoted,” Morgan said, throwing a glance back at Darla, who winked at him.

Mickey shot around a comer and barely missed a Fiat, the horn of which sang out and disappeared behind them. The driver waited a long time, making eye contact with Morgan, before he said, “You pullin'' my leg, here, Morgan?”

“Hell, no, buddy.” Morgan watched his friend beam. “Or should I say, Captain.”

“What, you ...”

“Oh, I guess you hadn’t heard," Darla said, leaning over the front seat as Morgan did. ‘The brass is pretty impressed with our fearless leader here; they seem to think it rubs off.”

ss~i‘All right then,” Mickey said. “All right then! Let’s celebrate!”

'•"“Fine with me,” Morgan said. “Just get us to the other car. After the switch I figure we can kill a few hours before we make the train.”

Darla smiled again, but a hint of concern showed. ‘Sean, now, don't be cocky. We’re not home free yet.” “Might as well be, ’ Morgan said.

“It’s not in the orders.”

“Come on, ’ Morgan said. “A few hours downtime, they want us to sit in an airport all that time? Doesn’t sound safe to me.” He smiled. “Someone might make us.” .

IPThat’s the spirit,” Mickey said. “Hey, Darla, listen to the master!”

“Yeah, well, they could make us in the local tavern, too. The master could get us killed because he suddenly thinks he’s bulletproof.”

Morgan grinned sheepishly, but he knew some of the hurt reflected in his eyes. “What, you don’t trust me?” “It’s not that,’ she said. “But you’ve been cutting it a little close. I mean, that thing with Mansfield in London, you took a few extra risks there, Sean. ’ Darla’s brown eyes locked onto Morgan’s, and he failed to hold his grin.

Mansfield had been a CIA man, a loose cannon who had started hiring out to all the wrong people. Morgan had spent four days hunting him through the streets of London. Frankly, it had been fun, even if Mansfield had nearly killed him two or three times. It had become a game, for real. Mansfield was a clown, really, a joker in a baseball cap who killed without remorse and bragged openly about his ability to disappear. See how I can disappear, even in this silly Yankees :ap? And he could. Plainest face you ever saw. Just sucked the light from around him and he disappeared. Morgan had finally settled on foiling Mansfield’s London hit and taking out a couple of the double’s contacts. And it had been fun.

Only Darla had frowned at the report. The brass had answered his cockiness with a commendation. Okay, he wanted to say. Okay, tell me the rest. Tell me how I’m taking too many risks because it’s all I have now. Margaret had been gone for, what, a year and a half? Her and David, off to Chicago or someplace, so Margaret could work on a doctorate. At first she had come home on weekends, but when was he ever home on weekends? The work took its toll; who wouldn’t play the game a little closer when the game was all you had? But let’s face it, it was true what Mickey said. He was the best. The best in a long time, anyway. Yeah, that Berlin thing went bad five years ago, but since then? Smooth. Clockwork. Why not have a little fun?

“Yeah, well,” Morgan recovered, moving his hand through his blond hair. “Yeah, okay.” He looked at Mickey. “Tell ya what, Mick. We’ll get a drink at the airport, celebrate there.”

Mickey grinned, but there was a twist on the end, as if he felt uncomfortable seeing his buddy lose a minor battle. The taxi turned another comer and suddenly the world was a dark wasteland of warehouses.

“Car’s at loading dock seventy-three,” Morgan said. Darla’s hand was on his lap and he took it, looking at her. There was a coldness in the air. She had dressed him down as much as anyone dared, and she wasn’t sure how to proceed. He wasn’t either.

The rain poured down on the taxicab in waves, dumping gray and dirty against the windshield, and Mickey slowed down noticeably as he maneuvered between parked trucks and dumpsters and the occasional truck backing out of the loading docks. The light was low, the sun blocked by heavy black clouds, what little daylight there was sinking into the gray stone and concrete and disappearing.

Morgan held Darla’s hand, feeling stupid. This was silly. He was acting like a kid. It wasn’t him. Darla and him acting like teenagers hunting moles and zipping around with Mickey at the wheel. What the hell was he doing? Something in the back of his head told him Margaret might still take him back. She might, you know. She might. No offense, Darla, but there 's a place I’m supposed to be. He reached out his empty left hand and swatted the idea aside. That was the danger in getting serious, you think crazy, idle thoughts. Stay loose.

Darla nuzzled against him as the taxi whipped around a dumpster and entered the seventy block. ‘Hey, Sean ’

“hm.”

“How about a little vacation? You know, a little fun in the sun?” she whispered. “Cancun'.’ You’ve got some time saved up, surely.” _;.

“Surely,” he said idly. On the left a Mercedes flatbed truck was approaching, signalling to pass in the narrow lane between the loading docks. The truck roared up close, flashing, blaring it’s horn. ‘But I like the rain,” Morgan said.

Mickey swore. “All right, all right,” be muttered, bearing to the right as the truck passed.

“I’m sure they have rain in Cancun.”

Morgan smiled. “Yeah/ He watched the waves of gray rain pound against the window as the flatbed passed. Through the drizzle he saw four or five men on the back, workmen getting soaked in the Paris rain. Each of them had a parcel. One of them wore a baseball cap.

“Maybe you’re right,” Morgan yawned. “I’m sorry, maybe you’re right. I have been pushing a little hard.”

A baseball cap. ‘ ‘Mickey...” Through the tidal wave on the windshield Morgan saw the brake lights on the flatbed flare and loom towards the taxi.

Mickey cursed, hit the brakes, and swerved to the right.

Slow motion, now, as Morgan looked at Darla and saw the inch-wide perforations pushing through the roof of the taxicab. Morgan felt himself looking around, dumbstruck, paralyzed, head swivelling to look at the gang of four on the back of the flatbed, pumping bullets into the top of the car. Something in the front seat burst, and Morgan felt himself doubling over in the back seat, warm sticky wetness pouring red over his hands, something that may have been one of Darla’s teeth grazing his cheek.

Bullets hailing in, Morgan reaching for his gun, less than a second having passed since the first shots, and his arm sluggish, moving through quicksand, his shoulder a mess. Something collided dully with his shoulder and Morgan gasped in shock.

Cutting it a little close. Thinking of yourself. Not paying attention. Nothing left, who the hell cares, Margaret gone, David gone, what do I care?

Darla’s teeth and Mickey’s blood were in Morgan’s hair and his own blood oozed out of him like a beer tap, running and soaking and bringing the cold and sluggish sleep to him

Squiggles of red and black swarmed over Morgan’s eyes and blotted out what was left of the sun.

Morgan opened his eyes and the first thing he saw was the glint of steel, a razor high in Jo Carlin’s right hand, a muscular, thin arm pulled back, ready to swipe down, fingernails and cold steel glinting in the glimmering green light.

Morgan blinked, fighting the paralyzing gas that still crept through his system, giving sleep free reign. Move! Respond!

And sometimes response was not possible, just as the

Hulk could not respond in time to save David and he could not respond in time to save Darla and Mickey and he stood there and looked stupid. But even if you had moved, you would have failed.

Not this time. Move!

Jo Carlin’s hand was dropping, now, in slow motion, sweeping down in a glistening arc, Jo’s eyes aflame with triumph.

Jo was Sarah Josef. Sarah Josef was KGB. He’d read the dossier, but she’d managed to escape being photographed. Jo Carlin had been a very deep cover. Very well done.

That was no excuse at all. Morgan watched the hand come down and felt the blood flow back into his limbs and felt his brain start talking to his muscles again and he moved his arm.

And caught Jo’s wrist.

Jo’s whole body fell forward an inch as Morgan interrupted the force of her slicing blow. As Jo lost her balance he looked in her eyes, which came close to his, their faces nearly touching, his hand around her razor-wielding wrist, off to the side, her knees pressing his ribs, and now that the feeling was coming back his ribs were starting to hurt...

Her eyes were on fire and he saw the hatred there. It’s true, Jo. I did kill him.

Right aim thrusting up against Jo’s sternum lifting her up, now bringing his forehead up against her nose. Blood flew down ovei Morgan’s eyes as she moved back, her left hand tearing at his face, his left hand still on her right wrist, bending her wrist back as Morgan rolled to the right, their outstretched arms coming up and around, Jo rolling under him, and as her right hand hit the deck Morgan felt the fingers loosen, and the razor bounce away.

It’s what I do.

“So you’re Sarah Josef,” Morgan grunted. “I’ve heard about you.”

“You’re a fool.”

“And you’re also my mole. So what just hit us like a ton of bricks, I take it that was Blonsky? You two have it in for me?”

She laughed. “Emil Blonsky and I have business with URSA. I have it in for you.” Morgan let go of the agent’s wrist as Jo Carlin brought in her legs and kicked him, hard and rapid, in the face and then the chest, sending him back against the wall.

The Hulk looked up from his keyboard. He had not heard from Betty. She was supposed to call after the visit with Nadia.

Hold on, there. She has a class. Hell, the other night you didn’t call and didn't come home until the morning, buddy.

But still.

Bruce stood up and stretched, scraping flecks of ceiling into the air with his knuckles as he did so. He turned around and picked up the telephone, dialing Sean Morgan’s number.

The phone rang seven times before he got voicemail, of all things. Funny that SAFE would have voicemail. Press one if you want to send a box of hands. Press two if there is an exploding airplane involved.

Bruce clicked off the phone and looked at the clock, then recalled the headset Morgan had given him on the trip underground. He sat down in his gigantic chair and swivelled around, facing the window. The extra-large headset fit snugly against his head and Banner felt the mike rubbing between his lower lip and chin. He bent it outward a little bit, wondering what to say.

Bruce keyed the mike and said, “Hulk to Morgan. Pick up, Morgan.”

Nothing. The Hulk tapped his desk a few times. “Ahem. Open Channel D.”

Static.

Come on, don’t these guys have secretaries?

“Hulk calling Orson. Come in, Orson,’ Bruce smiled, but this was beginning not to be funny. “Hey, SAFE crackers, anyone there?”

There was a crackle and hiss, then a sound sliding through, wet and guttural. “Hello, Hulk.”

Bruce spun around, sitting bolt upright. He was silent for a long moment, then he whispered, “Emil?”

“Hello, Doctor,” the voice slithered. The study was dark, and the Hulk felt himself floating in space, just him and the voice in his ear, somewhere out there, disembodied, making a connection.

“Where are you, Emil?”

“I’ve been thinking. Dr. Banner,’’ the voice rasped. The voice sounded like it oozed green, gamma-irradiated and boiling. “When this is over, I just might keep the ’carrier. If there’s anything left.”

Bruce spoke slowly, rising. “Emil, where’s Morgan?” Morgan? Where the hell is all of SAFE?

“Better yet,” whispered the voice on the other end. “I don’t expect to come through. So I think you can have it. What better home for a man all alone than in the sky?”

On the bridge of the Helicarrier, the Abomination pushed a technician aside and sat down at his console, keying into the late Tom Hampton’s GammaTrac station, bringing it up on screen. He watched the green arm sweep around, and sighed almost lovingly as a blip in Westchester jumped, moving fast south and, suddenly, gaming altitude.

Emil Blonsky looked over his shoulder at the bridge crew, all of whom had been felled by the same sleeping gas Sarah had set up to knock out the entire populace of the Helicarrier. Having no one to speak to in particular, the massive, garish monster shrugged. “Hulk approaching.”

Anyone seen leaving,’ came the voice on the loudspeaker, “will only cause more destruction and loss of life.”

Betty whipped off her heels and stuffed them in the garbage. What would Daddy do?

General “Thunderbolt” Ross would storm and threaten and bluster and boil. He would insult and insinuate. And he would probably get himself shot. What would Daddy do? Screw that, what will I do?

A teacher, yes, and a fine one. Nearly a nun, once. Also a pilot with survivalist training, although no one brought it up very much. Betty scanned the ceiling of the ladies room as footsteps echoed in the hall, the woman on the PA system continuing her tirade.

‘‘All of you are being filmed for the better of the recipients of our message.”

There was a panel above the third stall, a maintenance shaft entry.

“I urge you all to be brave and face your fate with the stoicism of those who are now in control. Just as they are expected to sacrifice, so are you. This consulate is but a growth of our mother country.”

Betty entered'! stall, climbed up on top of the toilet, reaching up to the panel. She pushed once, heaving. It did not budge. Calm down. Footsteps. Calm down. She ran her hands around the edge of the panel.

“And sometimes growths must be severed, boils must be lanced, for the betterment of the whole.-’

. On one edge was a sort of handle, a flat circular impression like a screw. Underneath would be a bar that would slide out of the way and allow the panel to push upward.

“All will soon become clear. Please be patient.”

The ladies’ room door slammed open and three URSA agents entered, fanning out. They did not see the panel slide softly back into place in the ceiling.

‘This message has been prerecorded.”

God, she does go on, doesn't she? Betty began to crawl, gingerly placing her weight on the metal frames on either side of the shaft, trying to keep from sending a ceiling lamp crashing down to the floor—or worse, from crashing through herself.

She heard an agent below her say, as the three ran out of the ladies’ room, “Find the runaway.”

Bruce leapt from the ground outside his condo and landed just north of Central Park. He scanned the air, spotting the Helicarrier hovering above the World Trade Center, brushing past the twin towers at a stunningly close proximity. He leapt, wind sailing past him, and fell towards the earth again, landing on a crowded street in midtown.

When you’re seven feet tall and weigh twelve hundred pounds and you land next to a newsstand, people get out of the way. Bruce barely noted the pulverized concrete beneath his feet as he crouched and leapt again, landing this time on a street closer to the World Trade Center. He leapt again, now aiming for the mammoth ’carrier that crossed the avenue, casting its shadow the length of a city block.

As he soared, he noted electrical sparks spraying out from the underbelly of the helicarrier. It looked like someone had punched through the underside. Someone heavy, with claws. The jagged metal rim of Emil’s entryway came flying towards the Hulk so fast he barely had time to reach out his hands and catch it. Giant green fingers wrapped around toothy metal and sparking, jumping wires, as the Hulk whipped his body around to plant his feet on the other edge of the hole, toes and fingers digging into the steel. The SAFE Helicarrier rocked in the air as, for the second time within half an hour, a twelve-hundred-pound gamma giant collided with its underbelly.

There were jets in the air, small ones zipping around, circling wide. The Hulk hung and stared at them, far off. Fighter planes. What was going on?

Bruce could hear alarms ringing on the inside, blaring away, and there was a pulsating red light emanating from the hole in the ’carrier’s hull. The Hulk let go his feet, swung down, hanging from the rim, feet pointing towards the earth, swung again, and let go his hands as he flipped up and through the hole and onto the slick floor of what appeared to be a full-sized basketball court. The entry hole had ripped right through the center, neatly between the two goals, each back-board proudly bearing the emblem of SAFE. The backboards glared beautifully in the red emergency lights cast by the wall alarms, the reflective, sparkly fiberglass covers flashing. The Hulk surveyed the SAFE basketball court with an approving nod.

Nice place to work.

Bruce began to jog, exiting the gym and passing into the locker room. As he entered, he was accosted by a wave of steam rising from showers that still ran and spattered water. The steam swirled in the pulsating red light, and Bruce had difficulty making sense of the different images. The regular lights didn’t seem to be working so well. He was about to start jogging again when he noticed a shape on the floor and bent down, brushing his hand. There was a naked man on the floor, a towel clutched in his hand, next to Bruce’s right foot. The Hulk crouched for a moment, feeling for a pulse. He sniffed. Gas? If so, it had dissipated, especially with all this steam moving around.

Mr. Morgan, we have some security problems.

Bruce moved steadily through the locker room, avoid' ug stepping on any of the fallen SAFE agents who lay scattered about like rag dolls. It was difficult, weighing what he did, being as large as he was. There was a re curring dream Bruce used to have, in the days when he had no control over his Hulk persona. The dream was not that he would kill a sizeable number of soldiers, or even that he would bring entire planes full of innocents out of the sky.

The dream had been one in which he lived out again and again a very basic fear that he would step on someone. Just take a step and crush a body. He would wake up in the middle of the night drenched in sweat. He did not need violence to do harm. The Hulk was a danger merely by virtue of his size and strength.

Bruce stepped gingerly over a woman who leaned, towel-wrapped, against a locker. She wore small eyeglasses that glinted red in the swirling steam. Bruce: stopped for a moment, disoriented. Every drop in the air was lit up red, and he had no idea how many people were under his feet. He had reached the end of a line of lockers. He looked around, red-bursting steam flowing like fog. Where in hell is the exit? He walked along another line of lockers and turned, to find another line of green metal doors and benches.

The Hulk put his hand on the wall and slid his feet along a slick, tiled floor he could barely see, and felt sleeping flesh push aside as his foot moved through. Surely he could get more fight in here. This is great. Attack the Helicanier and get lost in a locker room roughly the size of Kansas.

The Hulk looked to his left and saw the communal shower, a large circular room with a spewing post of showerheads in the center. There was another door on the other side. Which probably led to more lockers. Or might lead to a lift

Bruce winced. The alarm siren was beginning to echo in his head, blood washing through his ears with every burst of sound. He decided to cut through the shower and stepped through the white door, steam whipping around him.

Something moved out of the comer, a garish shape in pulsing red and green, barely registering out of the comer of Bruce’s left eye. Something butted a scaly head against the Hulk’s lower back. Bruce saw the fog splitting, pulsing brilJiant red light, as the force sent him colliding with the far wall.

The Hulk slid to the ground, kicking a SAFE agent as gingerly as one can kick a naked man out 01 the way. “There you are.”

“If I waited for you to find your wky up the bridge,” said the Abomination, “it could take years.”

—‘Unhand me, ’ Greg Vranjesevic said.

Selznick leaned against the security desk and nodded at the two agents who held the ambassador. “Fine,” Selznick said, as he leaned against the desk. “Mr. Vranjesevic, I don’t mean to make you suffer. Really. And if you promise to behave I’m happy to let you stand there like a dignified man. All right?’’

Vranjesevic nodded as the agents on either side let go of his arms. He stepped over to Nadia, who sat on a chair, staring at Selznick and Timm. “What are you people? Selznick and Timm? You sound American, what’s your connection with an outfit like URSA?”

Selznick threw a glance at Timm, who up until a few minutes ago had been safely ensconced in his role as an agent Of SAFE. Selznick smiled, then laughed a bit, reaching in his breast pocket for something. He frowned, patted his pockets, then looked at Timm and said, in perfect Russian, “I can’t find my cigarettes, you have any?”

Timm fished out a pack of Morleys and tossed a cigarette to Selznick, looking at Greg. He, too, spoke now in perfect Russian. “Just because you can’t get rid of your accent doesn’t mean we can’t. That’s child’s play, Gregor. At least,” he looked at Selznick, who was lighting his cigarette, “it was for us.”

Greg folded his arms. After a moment he nodded. ^ Ah. Cousins. Yes, I’ve heard of yon brats. Get to spend your mornings watching Captain Kangaroo and your afternoons blowing up libraries, or something like that?”

“It was a very different time,” Timm said wistfully.

Selznick looked at his watch and said, “You know what? I think we should watch some television.” He tipped his head in the direction of a large television 'n the lobby—which was actually more of a den, decorated as it was in serene yellow and brown—and Timm strode to the television ana flipped on the switch.

Greg heard Selznick engage in a quick conversation by radio with the two agents who were looking for Betty Gaynor. Or was it Banner? Whoever she was. So with Selznick and Timm, and those two—what were their names? His mind zipped back to quickly-seen chest badges. Spacey and Kimball. So there were four of these URSA people here. Four of them waiting for some kind of sacrifice.

“Should be about now,” Selznick said idly, flipping to a news broadcast. There was a man reading a report, and now Greg heard sirens again. For an instant he thought the alarms in the consulate had been turned back on, but no—this was outside the window. He looked at the front window, a large, reinforced, bay-style affair, then looked at Selznick.

“Go ahead, Ambassador, have a look.”

Greg was already there, and he lifted back the heavy red curtain. There were fire trucks, two of them, pulling up in front of the iron gate in front of the embassy. He countcd at least three police cars. “We are not alone,” Greg said.

Ej‘Just watch the television, Mr. Vranjesevic,” Timm said.

On the screen, a man with wind-blown hair held a microphone to his face and stood in front of a line of police cars. Greg realized that those were the same cars he was seeing out the window.

.. New York police received a frightened phone

call just under an hour ago from a woman who identified herself only as Jo. We have procured a copy of that call for you.”

The screen went blue and a small rectangle with a ridiculously dramatic question mark and the name “Jo” covered the screen, white words transcribing the voice Greg and the rest of the city now heard:

“Please!” the woman whispered. “Please, you’ve got to hurry. This is Jo, security verify Tanqueray nine-oh-seven. You’ve got to stop them; I can’t do anything else. SAFE is going to bomb the consulate, the Russian consulate, they—they’re acting under orders from the President himself, I swear... The Helicarrier is going to bomb it. It’s too late for a rescue mission, all the loyals inside are under guard, they said if someone tries to rescue them they’ll blow it up... No! Wait!” There were shots, then, two of them, and the tape went blank.

Greg looked at Selznick, twisting his lips. ‘ That’s the woman we just heard, that Sarah Josef.”

Selznick nodded, a gleam in his eye.

“Are you telling me,” Greg said, regarding the trucks outside; .“seriously telling me, that you are on a suicide mission?”    n

Selznick looked at Timm, sliding onto the couch. “And not even drooling, is that your point? That we don’t seem crazy, we’re not robots, even though we expect to die? It does happen that something can be important enough to die for with a clear head.’

Greg banged several times on the window when he saw a man in a fireman’s outfit look over the iron fence, the light outside dimming. “Hey!”

“Greg,” said Timm, “forget it. They don’t know what to do. So they’re not going to do anything. They’re here to make sure whatever happens keeps itself contained.”

The reporter on the television continued: 'Ladies and geudemen, this has been a lot of information to try to organize in such a short time. But inside sources in the government say that, indeed, there is a covert organization called SAFE, which apparently is a loose arm of the executive branch. Neither the President nor his press secretary could be reached for comment at this time.”

“Dick, is SAFE another S.H.I.E.L.D.?” the anchorman came on, calling out to the man on the ground.

“Uh, no, Jerry, S.H.l.E.L.D. we’ve known about, of course, they’re a UN arm. But SAFE apparently has a Helicarrier, just like S.H.I.E.L.D., and in fact we’ve seen the ’carrier wandering around. Most of us assumed that was S.H.I.E.L.D.’s.”

“So where is the helicarrier now?⁵- the anchorman asked.

Dick, on the ground, who looked as though he would rather be covering a hurricane, looked up. “Ah—Jerry, it looks like it’s here.”

Greg looked away from the television and out the window, into the sky. There was a massive shape moving over the embassy, like a steel blimp, only about five times larger.    .

“This is crazy,” Greg said. “This is insane. Why would the United States government blow up a consulate? That doesn’t make sense.”

Selznick stood up, taking a drag on his cigarette. “Greg, Greg.” He walked over to the window and stood at the window, peering out the curtain. He pulled in close, breathing on Greg’s shoulder, the gun still in his hand. “It doesn’t have to make sense. Perception is reality. That’s a cliche, but the funny thing about cliches is that they often turn out to be true.” Selznick looked back at the people sitting in the den. Nadia, and two servants, both of whom appeared to be wishing they had gotten off early today.

“Let’s say something horrible happens, anywhere. One thing you notice is that everybody begins to make up theories. The one thing we can’t handle is the idea that something could happen for a reason that doesn’t make sense. We’ll make it make sense. So what do you know? A woman calls the police and says the government is going to do a horrible thing. She gives a security code that the FBI can run and verify that she is, in fact, connected. So everyone runs to the consulate to watch. And maybe it doesn’t blow up, and everyone goes home, and wonders, what the hell was that about?’ ’ He crushed out his cigarette in a standing ashtray and continued. “But there’s the Helicarrier. And let’s say the consulate does blow up. Whose version of events will win? I’ll tell you: the one they were already looking for.”

Greg looked at him, a mass of bile sliding down his throat. ‘And all you really need is an explosion.”

Nadia spoke up, staring at Timm. “Why? Why would you do such a thing?”

Timm said, “My partner talks too much. All will be come clear, ma’am. ’

There was a chime in the lobby, behind the security desk.

“That’s the elevator,” Greg said.

“Yes,’ said Timm.

Nadia asked, “Where does it come from?”

“Below,” said Greg. “The deliver}' tunnels.”

Th^ elevator doors chimed, and began to open. Greg approached it. There sat a device the size of a vacuum cleaner, a shimmering green globe on top. And it was humming.

The Hulk and the Abomination spilled through the doorway on the other side of the shower and fell back against the tiles, sliding across the red-pulsing, steaming floor. The ’carrier pitched, and it felt like a whole building tipping over, and Bruce grabbed at the wall as he began to slide across this new room. “What in hell?”

Emil tumbled across the Hulk, tearing at Bruce’s throat. “Hclicarrier is driving itself. It’s not very smart.

It wants to avoid hitting buildings,” be said, as Bruce kicked at him viciously. Emil’s claw hooked the Hulk’s foot and drew blood as Bruce flipped over, his chin slamming into the tiles, cracking them. “But it doesn’t care how sloppy it is at driving.”

Bruce looked around. They were in a spa, but there were no agents around. No one to crush as Emil and he threw one another around. “Where’s Morgan?” he said, jumping. “Where’s Betty?” pi'Morgan’s being taken care of,” Emil said, as the palm of Bruce’s hand collided with the Abomination’s throat. ‘Soon I’ll have his lying tongue on a key chain.” “I thought you said you didn’t expect to come out of this.”

“You can always dream,” Emil said. The scaly demon fell backwards, and the Abomination gasped for air as his back struck the tiles, the long ridge of scales down his back cutting a wide gash into die floor. His red eyes flared in the steamy fog.

Sf/‘Where’s Betty?” Bruce had Emil by the throat. He pushed with his feet and they slid another meter or two, and now Emil’s head was hanging over the edge of a hot tub, the bubbling water swirling and pulsating with the red emergency lights.

“No idea.”

“Wrong answer,” said Bruce. He raised his back and plunged his hands forward with Emil’s head, and saw the red eyes plunge down under the water.

rhere was a noise, the scaly, finned head moving under the water, and when the head came back up, Emil spat water and twisted, rising, Bruce’s arms bending as Emil moved in one vicious arc, his body whipping up. Bruce felt razor-sharp teeth dig into his shoulder and he winced. Bruce rolled back and sent Emil flying, and felt tiny pieces of dense flesh from his shoulder go with him.

“You want to see Betty?” Emil spat. “I have something to show you.’ The Abomination sprang up and ran through the doorway, moving like a green, scaly panther, gone in a red-pulsing flash.

The Hulk wasted no time running after him. He turned the comer, following the deep impressions of Emil’s feet. Another comer and he felt and saw red carpeting as he spilled into one of the business corridors of the Helicarrier. The steam dissipated; now there was only the glaring red emergency pulses of light and the loud alarms, which still blared, deafening, in his ears. And now there were people.

The Hulk reached the end of the hallway. How does he move so fast?

Bruce stopped. There was a fork. Now, lie had to decide which way to go, and as if the heavy indentions of Emil’s feet didn’t point the way enough, Emil had left him a sign: there was a SAFE agent tossed against the wall, one knee up, as if he were resting, one arm on the knee, pointing the way, the head rolling back. Except he wasn’t pointing the way. Because Emil had taken to hand stealing again.

The Hulk ran left as the hand that wasn’t there told him, moving down the corridor. He reached the lift bay at the end of the hall.

The SAFE Helicarrier, like most good places to work, had so many stories that the elevator bays held nine elevators, three for the first eleven floors three for 12-24, and three for 25-37. The Hulk surveyed each wall until he found the one with drops of blood running down the button panel. He pressed the up button, and in a moment a door to his left shot open with a pneumatic hiss. The Hulk got in. There was blood on number 26, a sign next to it labeled bridge.

Inside the lift, the sound of me alarms was distant, a pulsing bass cry in the bowels of the ship, and Bruce realized his ears had been slightly deafened by the sound, because now the comparative quiet of the lift felt like the curiously loud silence you hear when you leave a concert.

Blood on the walls, want to watch a movie?

The doors opened and the Hulk saw a splotch of blood on a panel on the wall, and followed the smudges to the notation that said a/v room, room 2698.

All this and an A/V geek, too.

Bruce ran a quarter mile green feet padding along Morgan's expensive carpets, before he found the large double-doors labeled 2698. He looked down in disgust to see the dead man’s hand, tossed aside. Bruce pushed the doors open and saw John Wayne.

The room was dark except for the red emergency lights which lit up the dark backs of the audience seats. Twelve large screens attached to one another so that they could make one big picture played, light and color mixing with the pulsing red. And John Wayne was on screen, in a helmet.

“The Green Berets,” the Hulk said, turning around. Near a control panel in the back sat a figure in the dark, a pair of red eyes on a great, scaly form, the whole person lit up every naif-second by the red lamps.

“Yes,” said Emil. “One of the worst war movies ever made about any war, fittingly about Vietnam. Also one of the few where the sun sets in the east—but no one stayed that long.”

“Where’s Betty?” The Hulk started to step toward Emil and the Abomination spoke.

“More violence, Dr. Banner? Don’t move and I’ll tell you. Actually, I think she’s still at the embassy.” The Abomination sat there in the chair, idly watching John Wayne being brave and wooden. Emil flipped a switch and a news report came up on one of the lower screens. The Hulk listened for a moment, over the blaring sirens. After a moment he said, ‘What do you plan to do? Fire a missile? They’ll never let that happen. I saw fighters out there; they’ll blow this ’carrier out of the sky if—’’

“Really?” The scaly claws flipped more switches and now the screen lit up with twelve different images, alter nating, changing, and Bruce’s mind tumbled across all of them as the Abomination spoke. There was Nikita Krus-chev, shoe slamming against the table, there was Ike, there was Kennedy. Reagan in an old submarine movie. James Bond. “I doubt they’lj do that. They can’t blow up a vessel this size this low,” the slithery voice said. “It’ll scatter across twenty city blocks. Untold thousands could die. Is one consulate worth that?” ij£‘Thev might shoot a missile out of the air,” the Hulk said.

“Yes,” said Emil. “They could do that. ’ Khrushchev ballooned to fill six screens, Kennedy exploding to the other six, both men waving their arms, Nikita’s shoe pounding, foaming at the mouth. “If there were a missile.” The shoe, falling, slamming against the table, Kennedy verbally signing a blank check, pay any price, bear any burden ... “Those were the glory days, there,” F.mil said, his red eyes glowing. “We never felt more alive than when we hated one another the most.”

“What do you mean, ‘If there were a missile’?”

“I was in the United States when Kent State happened. Do you remember that?” Emil smiled, the face lighting up with the pulsing red and plunging back into darkness, the red eyes burning throughout. “An interesting lesson. Do you know what that lesson was?”

Bruce swallowed. There were jets circling out there. Where is Morgan? “I don’t have time for this.”

“The lesson was that when you get a lot of excited people to line up and yell and wave hardware, wonderful things can happen.”

Bruce opened his mouth. “The Helicarrier is a decoy.”

Emil clapped his hands in time with Kruschev’s falling shoe. “Yes! Just a personal touch, a way to involve Morgan in the most catastrophic event of the post-Cold War era. Of course it’s a decoy. The bomb is already in place.’¹

fey Betty...”

“And I’m afraid those trucks they’re lining up, and all those things they’re going to use to try to keep the blast contained, will be fairly useless. You’re been at ground zero on a gamma test, right?”

“Emil,” The Hulk burst over the seats, grabbing Emil by the throat, pieces of chairs flying. “Are you telling me there’s a gamma—”

Emil coughed, rising to meet the Hulk. “We can waste as much time as you like. But I figure they have about fifteen minutes.”'! t

etty pushed the panel down and peered through the |\\ opening. The room below her was one she had not seen, which was no surprise, since this was her first visit to the consulate. She could make out a dark wood interior and, even with the lights off, the room fairly glowed with shiny surfaces. Pushing the panel a little wider to get a better look, she saw a man standing against the wall and froze.

The man did not move. After a moment Betty peered more closely and saw why: it was a suit of armor, or something like it; a dummy dressed in leather and furs. Nearby stood more recent armor, and so on, up to the decorative coats of the army of Nicholas, the last tzar. Betty slid the panel aside and dropped through, landing deftly on the carpet. She surveyed the room in its entirety.

On another wall, near a dart set, was a large, blunt, double-bladed axe, with a handle about two feet long. The metal axe head was nearly a foot long. Perfect. Betty took the axe off the wall and began to walk with it, the weight swinging at the end of her thin but powerful arms.

There were footsteps outside the door to the museum room and Betty got behind one of the suits of armor as she heard the door creak open.

The man who entered was one of the men who had come into the bathroom, whom Selznick had called Kimball. Kimball was about forty, well built, with short gray hair. As he stepped into the doorway, surveying the dark room, Betty realized there wasn’t a thing about him that didn’t scream military.

Kimball surveyed the dummies lined up against the wall and stopped, obviously seeing for the first time the panel in the roof. He moved forward, walking closer to

it, and folded his arms, laughing softly. He keyed his radio. “Spacey, she’s in the ceiling.”

Betty began to move, her eyes on the back of Kimball’s head, hands grasping the handle of the axe, now breathing quietly and raising her arms, ready to bring down the axe head. The axe head came up.

Kimball suddenly dropped about ten inches and Betty felt the air fly out of her as a heavy' boot collided with her sternum. “Christ, woman,” Kimball said as he turned around. ‘You think I’m an amateur?”

Betty slammed against an end table and felt her shoulder collide with a lamp that was bound to have been expensive, pieces of glass flying. She held fast to the axe nandle and paid dearly for it when the weight of the thing caused the back of her arm to slam hard against the table edge. Kimball’s radio erupted: “Kimball, you in the museum room?”

“She’s here.” Kimball had his gun aimed and Betty jumped in the air, dancing across the cushions of an antique green sofa when she saw the silencer flare and a cushion burst on the sofa behind her ankle. She grabbed a crystal vase and hurled it as she jumped behind the sofa. The vase flew, Kimball ducked, the base of the vase connected square with Kimball’s temple, and the URSA man’s body whipped back, stunned. Betty looked up from behind the sofa, not having been there half a second, saw the momentary daze in the man, and jumped. She sprang up onto the couch and sprang again, hitting the ground behind him and to his left, bringing the axe up as she did so. Thirty pounds of iron smacked against the back of Kimball’s head and the gun clattered to the floor as Kimball felt forward. The agent fell headlong, smacking his forehead again against the cushions of the sofa. He did not move.

Idiots. Who did they think they were dealing with? She was the wife of the Hulk. She’d spent most of her adult life being shot at, beaten, kidnapped, even transformed into a harpy once. And to top that, Dad had spent many a night teaching her to defend herself, to be resourceful, all that imagine-you’re-lrapped-in-enemy-tenitory-with-a-sucking-chest-wound crap. Yeah, he was “Thunderbolt” Ross. But what had he called her, way back then, on that Fourth of July? The boys were shooting targets and she was hunting lightning bugs of all things, pouncing, slapping jars down with an efficiency that made him just a little scared, just a bit (though Dad would never admit it) and put up such a jovial, ingratiating fuss, laughing through that cigar. He knew he'd never control her, could only share her with the world, could only watch as she made her decisions, pounced when she had to. What had he called her? Chain Lightning. You move just like Chain Lightning, little girl.

Betty heard footsteps running for the museum room outside in the hallway. Spacey. She grabbed the lamp on an end table next to the door and tossed it across, running the cord under the doorway. Then she dove for the dummies, taking her place once again beside the suits of armor.

Spacey was clearly a runner, wiry frame, about five-foot-three. Not tall, but neither was Alan Ladd, whom he resembled. Spacey turned in through the door at full speed. He hit the cord and his foot brought it up, yanking the door hard into Spacey’s face. Betty pounced as Spacey fell forward, twisting to roll free of all encumbrances. Betty kicked him once in the face,as the agent brought his gun up at her. She swung the axe once, barely missing severing the man’s hand, instead connecting with the barrel of the gun. The metal spun away in the darkened room as Betty brought the axe handle down once more square against the side of the man’s head.

Betty breathed then. Jeez. These guys are teddy bears. She looked around in the dark, listening. There was a commotion in the lobby. Her shoulder hurt like hell, but she felt ready now. She diought briefly about taking one of the pistols, but decided against it. She was above that. They underestimated her and she had no intention of thinking like them. Betty massaged her sore shoulder and arm as she stepped neatly over the unconscious Spacey, kicking the lamp cord aside.

Betty grinned, the axe swinging on the end of the deliciously sore arm. Like a cat, Chain Lightning Ross moved out of the dark room and into the hall. Two teddy bears down. Two to go.

Sean Morgan was starting to regret that he had long since stopped carrying a stiletto.

The colonel cried out in pain as Sarah lunged at him with her razor, a line of red spewing out from Morgan’s chest. Morgan fell back and reached for his sideami, bringing it up. He fired, saw the woman he had known as Jo Carlin catch a slug in the chest and spin around, crashing once more against the panel of Tom’s GammaTrac station.

She hit the floor and lay there in a heap, face down, her hand still holding the razor.

Morgan felt the pain in his chest begin to throb. She had cut him rather deeply. Morgan looked around and realized that the emergency alarm was still blaring, and the throbbing in his chest seemed to keep time with it. As he moved, the muscles in his chest sang out in defiance, every motion of his arms and shoulders pulling at the slice across his pectoral. The woman was good with a blade. Morgan turned around, leaning for another moment on one hand, panting. He holstered his sidearm. He hated to admit it, but who was he kidding? He wasn’t as good at the physical stuff as he had once been. He was a long way from the cocky idiot that had gotten Darla and Mickey killed in Paris. He hadn’t paid that little attention in years, he was more mature, yes, all that. But he had lost a great deal of that wiry fire-escape-jumping bravado.

Morgan began to walk and winced in pain. Yeah, well. Let the kids jump off the fire escapes.

He should have known Jo for the mole. He should have made that connection. It was inescapable. But her cover had been the best. Her references were excellent. (Just like Betty Gaynor’s vitae is solid gold. Such things can be arranged% What did it come down to? He just hadn’t wanted to believe it, choosing to ignore the warning signs until too late, until the flatbed was right on them. Great, Morgan realized. I’m not the cocky kid anymore, and I’m still just as careless. Or I can be.

Pain. Jeez, that hurts. Morgan stepped over one of his agents as he reached the lift. What could he say? The fact was, he had screwed up, and he had been too caught up going to funerals to see all the signs. He wanted to be harder on himself, but he stowed that. The fact is, Morgan, you screwed up and that happens. Get over it, and move on.

Morgan reached the lift bay and pressed a button for the express bridge lift. The door slid open and he stepped inside, slapping the appropriate button, when Sarah Josef slammed into him from behind, sending his sore chest colliding into the metal wall on the other side.

Morgan spun around and dropped, kicking out and connecting with Sarah’r, right ankle as she slashed at him again with the razor. The lift doors shut and Morgan looked up at Sarah. “Bulletproof vest?”

“The thinnest possible,” she sniiled, jumping on him, grabbing at his jaw. She kneed him sharply in the solar plexus and Morgan cried out, and Sarah reared back her razor. “I’m taking that tongue first, Andy.”

Andy?

The lift doors slid open as the razor came down. Morgan drew up and kicked, hard, and the razor caught him across the chin as Sarah flew back and through the door, spilling out onto the bridge. Sarah fell against a chair and righted herself, holding the razor in front of her.

“All right, Mary Lou,” said Morgan, “I’ve had enough of this.” He drew his gun. “I know you don’t pad your head. Drop it.”

Sarah stood her ground, swaying. “You don’t understand, Morgan. We’re about to be witness to a very large explosion, and we’re just above ground zero. You’re going to die. I just prefer to see you dead at my hands. But I’m content enough to know you’ll go either way.”

“Jo ... Sarah ... whateverMorgan stooped himself. He was being 3ip, and suddenly he looked at the girl again and realized how wrong that was. “Look, it was—was a different time. I did my job.”

“And I will do mine, Colonel Morgan. I’m not interested in your apologies. I lost interest in that when I was a little girl and you took my father from me. It just so happens that my job involves you being dead.’ ’

“Isn’t it splendid,” Morgan said, “when you can make personal and professional goals mesh so well?” She moved forward. “Don’t I can kill you very easily, Sarah. I will.”

And that was when Bruce Banner collided with the underside of the Helicarrier. As the ’carrier groaned and pitched, Morgan lost his balance, just for a second, and Sarah shrieked, jumping, slashing down and slicing across Morgan’s gun hand. The piece clattered to the floor and bounced.

Morgan brought his nurt hand into his chest and shot out his left, catching the woman under the chin, kicking simultaneously, hitting her in the hip. Sarah shrieked in, pain and slashed at him again, up and across. Morgan looked down in horror and unmeasurable relief as the blade sliced through the crotch of his finest suit pants and came away having severed only one hundred percent wool.

Sarah dropped and kicked hard at Morgan’s shin, and as he fell back she jumped him, grabbing his collar. Morgan felt his back crash againsi the floor and Sarah’s weight pressing his abdomen, pulling against the slice across his chest. He grabbed for her wrist with his gun hand, pain shooting through every fiber of his body, his other hand going up to the woman’s hair, giving it a yank. Sarah winced, whipping her head, and Morgan slammed her knife hand againsi the base of one of the chairs on the bridge. Pain shot through his hand as the pressure reported the impact, pulsing with the emergency sirens through his aching wound. He saw the knife come away and as it did he grabbed for it.

Morgan had the razor. Sarah grabbed for it and missed and brought the empty hand up and clawed his face. Morgan felt sharp nails dig into the flesh beneath his eyes as he brought the razor up in a long arc.

A moment later, Morgan felt a thousand stings. Stings in his chest, his face, his hands. But mostly his eyes, because of Sarah’s blood in them.

The SAFE Helicarrier had a cafeteria as impressive as its basketball court, and it was here that the Hulk and the Abomination had pummeled their way before Emil managed to get the upper hand again. The Hulk saw reinforced plexiglass sailing tbwards his head and winced as he collided with it, spittle flying across the gigantic window.

‘ ‘Come forth, hissed Emil. and he had Bruce by one arm twisted up behind him, the Abomination’s barbed and scaly left leg wrapped around Bruce’s right one. Emil twisted Bruce’s head and slammed his forehead against the pane again. “Come forth, you seed of sulphur.” He wrenched back Bruce’s head and slammed it against the pane again. One of Bruce’s lips split and blood ran over his tongue. Emil rasped into Bruce’s ear, the words sliding off his lizard-like tongue. “Sons of Fire! Your stench is broke forth. ’ Bruce looked sideways and saw the burning red eyes. “Abomination is in the house.”

“Johnson,” Bruce said with a pant. “The Alchemist.”

“Yes,” Emil said, clicking his tongue. “Very good.

Look down, Bruce. You see the consulate, don’t you?” “I see it,” Bruce snapped, fighting to break free. Emil pulled Bruce’s arm a bit tighter upward and slammed him against the pane again.

“I asked you what I was going to make you see— and now you know.”

‘' I’ve seen explosions before, Emil.”

“Don’t play stupid,” the Abomination said. “I’ve seen you stupid, and this isn’t it. You know what you’re looking at. You’re looking at the end of your little Elizabeth. This is it, Bruce. Don’t fight! Stop. Listen. You’ve got to listen to me, Bruce.’ The demon spoke almost softly, whispering in Bruce’s ear. Bruce stared out the glass, looking for an opportunity. And here the Abomination wanted to talk.

Emil continued, calmly. “We’re a different race, you and I. That’s why I’ve placed us here, right at ground zero. We might come through it. We belong dead.”

‘ ‘Speak for yourself. Who are you to say who belongs dead?”    -

The voice rose violently. “Haven’t you been listening?’ \ Bruce felt his head slammed against the plexiglass again. These were good windows. “I am the Abomination!”

“You’re insane.”

“And you are a Hulk. What is a Hulk? A beast? A rock? The kind of name given to you, not taken, surely. I^t me tell you: a Hulk is a shell. That’s what they thought you were when the army first saw you, moving across the desert. A shell. Empty inside. Pure power, pure violence.

‘That’s the secret to identity, Bruce. People call you what they know in their hearts that you are.’ ’

“You’re wrong/’ And we don’t have time for this. “No. You’re not one of these... rodents. Bruce. You’re as much an outcast as I am, except that you have, time and time again, refused to listen to me. You play.

You pretend. You take a wife. You ignore what you are. And what you are is what I am.’’ He said the word long, slow and slithering. “Abomination, Bruce. I’ve read your psych profile—your father was a murderer, wasn’t he? Killed your mother, beat her senseless right in front of you, didn’t he? But even he knew that as much of a monster as he was, you were all that and more.”

“No...’* '

“You were different, smart, an intelligence devilish and pounding from your brain that even a scientist like your father knew to be afraid of. A new breed. And with all that intelligence lay a lover in your mind, another half, dark and powerful, bestial, sensuous, dangerous. Unfit for human companionship. Above it. Beyond it.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, I do.¹’ Emil whispered in Bruce’s ear. ‘Tell me this. When you get up in the morning in your little condominium and that human woman is chattering away at you, do you ever get mad? Do you ever wish she would just shut up? They do go on, you know. Have you ever seen her chattering at you and realized that she’s chattering because she’s afraid of you, that she’s talking to you because it’s a play, and we’re pretending that you’re anything but not normal, not human, the Hulk—did you ever look at her, mocking you with her deluded love and her barely masked fear and wish that you could just smash her?”    .

“Shut up,” Bruce said “Can you stop it? The bomb?”

“Smash her, like your father would. He was just an ordinary man, but he had no problem being what he was. Why do you have a problem being what you are? Why do you cling to this silly role of humanity?”

“Emil.g.Bruce shut his eyes. His father was a monster, swinging bony fists and causing bruises, grabbing Bruce’s tiny arm, afraid because little Bruce could take an Erector set and make a skyscraper with working elevators and he was only three. Monster!

Betty did not mock him. Betty was his partner. Betty was his life. There was a savage beast inside him, rampaging across the desert, and when it saw Betty it saw compassion and love and it saw—even it saw—that Betty was his friend

Then why are you listening to this?

“Emil,” Bruce repeated, shaking his head, slowly, the claws holding fast to his neck, “you’re wrong. You’re so wrong. I’m no more another race than you are. You’re uot an Abomination! You’re just a man, Emil. Just a pooi guy who made some mistakes.”

Emil roared, “Pity me?” He tore Bruce away from the window and flung him across the cafeteria. Bruce slid across eight metal tables, barely missing several sleeping SAFE agents, food trays flying.

“I don’t know that I pity you,” Bruce said, as he got to his feet. “I think I pity the man that you were. But I don’t pity you, Emil.’ Bruce spoke slowly. “You’ve gone too far now. But you’re still, in the end, just a man. A giant, scaly, green man, but a man. ’

“I am beyond man. So are you.”

“Cut it out, Emil. You keep saying that because you have to prove it to yourself, and I think I know why. I think.I understand why you’ve spent all this time embracing this Abomination role, acting it out, showing all the people that ever wronged you.”

“Oh?” Emil grinned. “Tell me. ’

“It’s because you’re just not a very good man. And rather than admit that, you’d rather convince yourself that you’re a beast. Or a superman. Anything but a sad, failed human being. ’

“Liar!” The Abomination soared through the air, knocking Bruce back, and the two tumbled end over end and collided with the far wall.

“But you’re not,” Bruce cried, as he and Emil rolled.

“That’s just what you believel That’s what you’re trying to talk yourself out of. Nadia’s down there, Emil! Your own wife! Doesn’t that mean anything to you?” Bruce swung, hard, knocking the creature back so he had room to talk “Do you think she deserves to die because you think you’re so poor an excuse for a human being? And I thought I needed a shrink.”

“She’s a haughty traitor,” Emil said. “She’s forgotten about me. Fooling around with that Greg Vranjesevic, she’s forgotten everything.”

“She thinks you’ve been dead a long time, Emil. A long time.”

“I’m not dead.”

“I—Bruce shook his head. The worst part was that it was mostly true. Emil was beyond the love of anyone, even Nadia. Bruce firmly believed that. There really wasn’t much hope to offer him. “You wanted to punish her, Emil. Punish her, I don’t care. All you want. But you don’t, you can’t want to kill her. ’

“I have cried.>. day and night... before thee,” Emil sang.

Brace shook his head, looking at the bay windows. “You’re hopeless. I’m tired of this. If we’re hovering here at ground zero,” he said, “then it doesn’t make any difference. I’ll see you in hell, Emil.” Bruce began to move, making up his mind, dense green legs pumping, bringing his hands up. Bruce ran and sprang from a cafeteria table like a diving platform, straightening his fingers as he flew for the comer of one of the gigantic plexiglass windows.

Four inches of plexiglass burst and splintered as the Hulk sailed through, out into the open sky.

§y now,’ came the taped voice of Sarah Josef, “the consulate must have been secured.”

Selznick looked around him. Spacey and Kimball hadn’t made it back yet with the woman. It didn't matter.

Greg looked up from where he sat. He had been staring in disbelief for six minutes, from the moment he staggered back when the elevator door opened to reveal a large, green bomb, humming away in his home. “My God, is she talking again?”

“Your actions,^ the voice continued, “of course, are being filmed and recorded at a remote spot. The purpose of this film is so that there will be a record of what happened here.’¹

“Why would she do that?” Greg mused. “If they want the explosion blamed on the U.S.—’ ’

“This tape is being sent to Moscow. It is URSA’s firm belief that internal matters should remain internal, that the family should solve its problems without sharing them publicly. The inept, mismanaged government in Moscow will see your deaths and know why URSA has done this. They will see the death of their consul and know it is because of their lack of vision. They will see the deaths of these URSA men and know it is because of our dedication. No one will doubt the loyalty of these brave men, who have chosen to give their lives in service of our cause.”

“You’ve got to be joking,” Nadia said, rolling her eyes, jjjust let us go. She’s not even here, you idiots, why don’t we just goT’

“Stay where you are, Ms. Domova,” Selznick said, a little too idly. “There’s no leaving. All right? No leaving.”

“And if I get up, right now,” said Nadia, “and I walk out that door, you’ll shoot me?”

| “No,” said Selznick.

“Nor will I,” Timm said. ‘But I have it on the best authority that there are snipers all around this place. Some of them are ours. And any head that pokes itself out from behind the front door is going to be shot. So sit tight. Not long now.”

“I wish I could find such easygoing, blithely suicidal help,” Greg murtered to Nadia. “It’s like being held hostage by MacNeil and Lehrer.”

KpYou don’t understand, Mr. Vranjesevic,” Selznick said, reverting to Russian. He folded his arms, one hand still grasping his gun. “Timm and I are at ease because we believe in what we are doing. Do you believe in what you are doing? You’re a consulate to a country that no longer knows itself. We are a part of an organization prepared to give that country its identity again.” Selznick smiled. ‘I can’t imagine a more calming fact. We are relaxed because we have already won, and need only wait. And our names—yours, mine, Timm’s—will not go down in history, but the right people will know what happened here, and how much we were willing to sacrifice for an idea.”

“It can’t possibly make a difference,” Nadia said. “Not enough to die for.’-’ '

“This isn’t an isolated incident, Ms. Domova,” Timm said. “At home, there are people already in place who are ready to receive this news and make all the right moves. Bills to be quickly introduced and passed. War to be declared. All of these things have been ready for a long time, but there has been one thing missing.” The time is ticking away, Nadia thought Ticking away. “All this kindling but nothing like what we needed. A spark. And today, Ms. Domova, Mr. Vranjesevic, we will deliver more than that spark. We will deliver an explosion.”

“It won’t work,” Nadia insisted.

Greg shook his head. “Oh, but it will. Remember Ockham’s Razor, the best explanation is the simplest one that fits all the facts? Our friends here will provide just such an explanation. And it doesn' t matter how many people raise questions. It will work,” he said, disgusted.

“And now,” came the taped voice of Sarah Josef again, “the minutes should be few. It is time for the opening act. Mr. Selznick. You will now kill Ambassador Vranjesevic.”"

“All in the plan, sir,” Selznick said, standing, brushing off his pants. “Glad to be of service.”

Selznick had the gun up, the hammer clicking back— —and then several things happened at once.

A panel in the ceiling over the man fell down, swinging out. Greg Vranjesevic took the moment’s distraction to dive behind the couch. He looked up to see a heavy axe come swinging down, its handle smacking Selznick on the back of the head, and a woman uncoiling from the ceiling like a snake: Betty Gaynor or Banner or whatever her last name was. Selznick’s gun landed on the ground next to Nadia, and Greg dove for it, grabbing the weapon and coming up, aiming it at Timm. Timm was turning to fire on Betty when'Greg fired once, twice, acrid smoke rising in the den. Timm grew an eye on the side of his head and fell violently sideways, his gun discharging as he did so. The bullet was unaimed, glancing off the batde-axe and across the room, tearing the glass face off an antique grandfather clock.

Betty breathed, looking around, holding the axe before her. “That’s all of them?”

“Yes,” Greg said.

‘Then let’s go.”

“We can’t,” Greg said. “Snipers, apparently.”

Betty chewed her Up. ‘ Never heard of an embassy without a helicopter on the roof. How about you?”

“The pilot’s gone,” Greg said.

“Not so,” Betty said, walking quickly to the elevator.

She dropped to inspect the gamma device that sat there, humming away. She froze for half a second when she saw the timer’s digital readout. “Your pilot’s right here, Mr. V.”    ~

“You fly?”

“About twelve hours in a helicopter, but I’m the best you’ve got. We have five minutes,” she said. “Let’s go.'f

A moment later, Greg, Betty, Nadia, and the other hostages had found their way up the stairs to the roof exit. Betty slammed the metal door open, looking around quickly. She spotted the helicopter and looked back at Greg. “There’s no reason for all of us to risk getting shot at once. I’ll try to get her started, then you guys come when I do.”

Betty sprang out onto the long, flat roof, naming across the tar-and-gravel rooftop. Almost immediately, the roof began to explode, echoing a far off crack! of gunfire, bits of gravel flying behind her as she moved. Someone was shooting, sure enough.

She had lied about her time in helicopters. Not counting simulators, her time in the air was more like five hours. One hour for every minute we have left, she thought. Okay, girl. You can do this.

Betty jumped up into the cockpit and took the pilot’s seat, surveying the controls. She wasted fifteen seconds trying to remember where to start before she saw the fuel gauge. Empty? Why would they keep it empty? Betty sniffed. She smelled fuel... Betty stuck her head out the side of the helicopter and saw her worst fears confirmed. A metal tube splayed out the side of the tail, having been tom through with, most likely, a pair of clippers. Dripping off the end was the same amber liquid that now collected on the rooftop in a pool. There would be no flying away.

' “No!” Betty smacked the, dashboard with her fists. “No!” There was another crack! from across the street and something tore through the comer of the chair she was sitting in. Betty jumped, scrambling out of the helicopter and running again. Bullets chased her ankles, gravel exploding and scraping against her.

“Forget it,” Betty said, slamming herself against the metal door once she’d shut it and were they all back inside. “It’s not going anywhere. And your friends didn’t lie—we’re being watched.” Once they were back on the second floor, she slid down to the carpet in the hallway, her head resting in her hands. “I guess that’s it”

And then, the embassy shook from its roof to its basement, as it might if struck by a green, seven-foot-tall, twelve-hundred-pound human missile.

Betty looked to her left and saw her husband crashing through the ceiling, through the floor, and down to the lower floor.

“What in hell?” Greg stared.

Betty raised an eyebrow, getting up, slinging her axe over her shoulder as she stood on the rim of the hole Bruce had left as he moved through the embassy. She looked down below, holding back her hair. “Kind of you to drop in.”

Bruce looked up, through the hole, and said, “Betty! I nearly hit you, I’m sorry. It’s kind of hard to aim when you’re—”

“Bruce—”

“The bomb, its a gamma device. Where is it?”

^{1 J}.‘Elevator, ” ¹ said Betty, as she and the others ran down below. “Bruce, I don’t think there’s much time.”

Bruce Banner crouched down at the open elevator door and stared at the readout, rhree minutes. “You’re right.” The device was on tractor belts, resembling something like a mesh between a vacuum cleaner and a globe. “It’s so tiny,” he muttered. “The one I built was two stories high. It needed its own platform.” Bruce wheeled the bomb gingerly toward himself as he got down Indian style, curling his gigantic legs underneath him. “This green glass on top. I think this is just a panel.” The Hulk cleared his throat. “Okay,” he said. “You—you’re the ambassador? You think you can find me a screwdriver and a pair of clippers?”

A radio on Bruce’s collar crackled and spoke. “ Banner? Banner, you there?”

“I’m here, Morgan, but we’re in a jam. Listen, there’s a bomb here.’ ’

“We’re stuck in a holding pattern'” Morgan said, “Everybody’s out and we’re stuck.”

“I know, I saw. The bomb is here, it’s not up with you, it’s here. I’m gonna try to defuse it.”

There was a pause. “I can get you a team. There’s gotta be—'

“No time,” Bruce interrupted. “" gotta go. I’ll be in touch/’

Greg was rummaging through the security desk. “I have a pair of scissors and a dime.”

“Screws are too small for the dime, but I’ll take the scissors,” Bruce said, holding up his giant hand. The scissors landed softly in his palm and he sat them down before him.

:: “Wait!” Nadia said, opening her handbag. “Here.” She drew out a white fold-over plastic pouch. “This is for my reading glasses.” Bruce took it and smiled. It held a tiny pair of tweezers and a minuscule screwdriver, both for handling the screws on a pair of frames. “Perfect.” Bruce breathed once, deeply, then took the screwdriver between his thumb and forefinger. He bent down, looking for the screws that held the globe panel in place. His hand shook. “Hell!”

“What?” Betty yelped.

“It’s just—it’s just that my fingers are so huge that it’s hard to work with normal equipment. Okay. Okay.” He bit his lip and controlled the movement of his hand, trying hard to feel the tiny piece of metal that barely registered in the nerve sensors of his skin. He got the first screw, then moved to the second, on the other side of the green globe, moving around, alternating, as he would with a tire.

The truth was, Bruce always hated tools, even though he was very good with them. Perhaps there was something in that. He mastered tools because tie needed to use what was knocking around in his brain, but even when he had finer hands, they could never express but bluntly the visions his mind held. Tools were clumsy and unyielding, like his limbs. There was a time when he nearly punctured an artery trying to change a tire in the rain. Tools would never reflect the mind of Bruce Banner, and neither would his clumsy, massive body now, except through a glass, green and darkly.

The clock gave him two minutes when Bruce gingerly lifted the green dome off the top of the device, and he beheld exactly what he expected. Wires.

“Is this one of those which-one-do-you-cut things?” Betty asked.

Bruce sighed. “Sort of.” He looked at Betty. “Fact is, though, it’s never as simple as it looks in the movies, except the part about cutting the wrong one can make you dead.” He surveyed the wires. There were three critical wires running to the detonator, all of them green. Light, medium, and dark. Very funny.

; “One and a half minutes.” Bruce looked at his wife. “Betty. I can’t do this. Get out of the way, I’m going to take it as far away as I can, maybe the ocean.¹’

~3jYou can’t.”

He shook his head. ‘I have to. I’ll try not to be there when it—”

“You can’t move it,” Nadia said, standing at the security desk. She was running through Sarah Josef’s droning message, now playing a part of it:

“The device is not to be moved. If the device is moved more than six feet once it has been activated, it will explode.”

The Hulk was already beginning to stand, his hands around the bomb, and he froze. He couldn’t have moved it more than three feet. “Okay.” He set it back down “Okay, then now we have a minute-fifteen, and I have to think.” He scratched his chin, then pushed the sweat away from his brow. “Look at that circuitry. Ten years ago I couldn’t have done this. It’s possible that even if I cut the right wire it won’t matter ” He was muttering to himself, very fast, not asking for comment and receiving none. The other three simply stood and watched as the behemoth talked to a bomb. “One thing I know is that this is cleariy fashioned after my own design. So it should be pretty much the same, just a lot smaller and cooler. Now, my bomb had a trick to it that I put in sort of as a failsafe. The motherboard. Of course! Screw the wires, it was the seventh circuit!”

“What will that do, cutting that circuit?”

“Well, in this case I’ll just pull a chip out, but it should just die. It’s a bottleneck I put in my design. A place where all the signals travel through, and if I kill that, no more signal.’

“Do it/’ Betty shouted.

“Except I don’t have any real reason to assume these guys followed my design that dosely.”

“Bruce .. i”

“Right. Okay.” Bruce bent forward, picked up the scissors, then lay- them down and picked up the screwdriver again. He leaned in and carefully wedged the flat of the screwdriver against the underside of the chip on the motherboard. “Okay. Here goes.”

“Stop,” came a voice, slithering and wet. Bruce froze. Nadia screamed. “Oh my God! That’s him, that’s that, creature that...”

Bruce looked at Nadia and at Emil. “We’re a little pressed for time here,” he said, resisting the urge to call Emil by name.

“And you’ll have etemily to regret it if you do whatever it is you’re about to do. ’

“What?” Thirty seconds.

“Bruce, URSA had a feeling you might try this. I warned them about that, so they reversed your failsafe. ’ “Reversed?”

“Reversed.”

“We’re about to blow up here.’’

The gamma demon crouched down, drawing in close, whispering. “Listen to me. For Nadia. The truth. Reverse your action.”

“What the hell is the reverse of seven?” Bruce shouted. Twenty seconds.

Betty shook her hands. “Thirteen?”

Greg raised an eyebrow. “Three-point-five?”

Emil sat back, casting a look of disappointment on Betty. “Religious studies instructor indeed. ’ He looked at Bruce. “Seven is the number of God.”

“fine of them,,”' Betty said.

“The number of the devil is ...”-“Six-six-six?”

Emil nodded, tilting his head. “That or four.” “Four?” Bruce said. “I never heard that.”

“I have,’’ Betty said.

“Really. I promise,” he rasped. “But six is bad, too.” Ten seconds. Bruce looked at the motherboard. Six or four. Six or four. “When you set this whole thing up, you got URSA to help with your agenda?” Why are you here? “Yes.”

“Sc, ’ he was whispering between his own words, “they saw the verse, the proverb.”

“Yes.'”' ■

There are six things which are an Abomination unto the Lord. The six-or-seven confusion.

Bruce bent down again with the screwdriver and closed his eyes as he stuck the head underneath the sixth chip and pried it loose.

The timer chirped once. And died, the red light disappearing. No dramatic last readout, it did not read oh-oh-seven, or anything.

Bruce stared for a long moment. Nothing, and nothing happened.

Betty pounced, like a cat, like chain Lightning, landing on his chest and putting her arms around him. Bruce was just beginning to breathe.

“I don’t believe it,” Bruce said. “I don’t believe fie—”

Bruce looked back, past his wife, who clung to him like a vine as he stood. He looked past the embracing Greg Vranjesevic and Nadia Domova, scanning the room.

Emil was gone.

II I' I ■ miiiiiiiiii i i i, mu 11 i mi

should be. There were work crews everywhere, fixing a million broken items from all the pitching and turning of the Helicarrier’s adventure with autopiloting. Add to that the gaping hole in the gymnasium floor, and there were a lot of work orders being approved.

Morgan was on the telephone, speaking into a headset, and the sandy-haired man looked up and gestured for Bruce to come inside. The director kept talking, the bandage on his face moving with his cheek, so that it seemed to Bruce that it had to hurt for him to speak. One of his hands was bandaged as well, and there was a telltale rise under the SAFE head’s starched shirt, the bandages underneath running across his chest, where he had been sliced by the late head of Gamma Team. All in all, though, he was not as much a mess as he might have been.

“Nick—no, Nick. Listen, I have no clue why the ambassador requested the Russians send the tape of the crisis to me first. What difference does it make, I sent it right to you anyway? That’s appropriate after all, you’re the international types. Uh huh ...”

Bruce did not like being here while all of the agents were awake, but Morgan had asked to see him, politely no less.

“Altered?” Morgan continued, looking at Bruce for a moment. “Nick, the very idea is not just insulting, it’s positively horrifying. SAFE wouldn’t alter a tape of international consequence. My God, that’s the kind of spooky thing I’d expect from S.H.I.E.L.D., but we’re just a bunch of locals with a Heiicarrier, here, Nick. I don’t even think we have a video editor.”

Bruce covered his mouth, smiling. Morgan was having an unmitigated and decidedly uncharacteristic ball. ‘Uh huh,” Morgan continued. “Woman? Yes, yes, Nadia Dor-nova was there.” There was a long silence. “You know,

the Broadway woman. Antigone___What other? Uh huh

... Look, Nick, reports or not, I’ve seen every inch of tape from that day and there was no other woman besides Domova, which is not a real shock, because she’s Greg Vranjesevic’s girlfriend .. No No one else ..1 No, I have no idea.’ Morgan coughed. "‘Yeah, well, I get a lot of that. Yours too. Why, Nick, I have absolutely nothing up my ... Nick?”

Morgan set down the headset. He composed himself and after a moment took on a grave face, very grave, mock-undertaker grave, even, Bruce thought. “This job,” he said, “has few joys.”

“He’s upset?”

“He’s always upset,” Morgan said. Now his face took on a calmer tone, began to lose some of its joviality.

'Thanks for coming.”

“You’ve had quite a shakeup around here,” Bruce said.

“Yes.” Morgan nodded, leaning back. “Coffee?” “Nah,” Bruce said. “Betty wants me to cut back.” “Interesting.”

“Um...” Bruce looked at the headset on Morgan’s desk. “If I understood that conversation correctly ... thank you. I mean that. We failed in everything we wanted to do.”

“Hm. How so?”

“KGB didn’t get Emil, of course. So you guys didn’t get yours back in exchange.’..’

“Well, I’m sorry that the full deal didn’t go through. But if you’re talking about our little favor to Betty....” “Yes.”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way. She captured this man Timm, a double for URSA, who was in the employ of SAFE. That alone is enough to earn our favor. I like to take care of my people, Dr. Banner.”

“I’m, ah, I’m sorry about Jo.” Bruce had gotten the whole briefing in short form already , but they hadn’t really talked about it.

‘1 haven’t been paying enough attention,” Morgan said. “Too much—I don t know. Grief.”

“Yes,” Bruce said. “But it’s useful, I think.'

“She could have been me, actually,” Morgan said, musing. “She had everv right to her revenge, when you think about it.”

“You know what?” Bruce leaned forward. “Try not to. All right? Because you’ll never make sense out of it.” “Well.” Morgan looked out the window. “Well. There’s plenty of time for that, I guess.”

“Maybe you should take some time off.”

“Hm? No,” Morgan said. “This is my element. It’ll be everything I can do to make sure SAFE doesn’t lose ts funding after we were so heavily infiltrated. Years of work will have to be redone. So that’s what I’ll do.” Bruce watched the man, a profile in silhouette against the gray sky outside. “Whatever you say. ’

“We didn’t completely fail, anyway.’ Morgan looked at Bruce. ‘ ‘We stopped him, didn’t we? That bomb could have gone off, tom away half the city. Insane.”

“That’s something, i guess.”

Morgan spun around and leaned forward on his desk. ■‘No,” he said. “That’s everything.’’

The Hulk smiled, rising. “Thank you. I guess I’ll be leaving you to your work, then.” He started to turn and walk.

“Dr. Banner—”

Bruce turned around “Hm?”

“Thank you for trying to save my son,” Morgan said softly.

The Hulk nodded, slowly, clutching the door handle.

“I have nothing to say, Morgan,” he managed, ‘‘except thank you.”

''Thank you for deciding to walk with me,” Betty said. She snuggled against Bruce as she walked through the ^{T r}illa2e, listening to the blues clubs through the doorways as they passed.

Bruce grinned a bit. “Well, even this getup won’t keep me from being recognized if someone were fooking for the-Hulk in particular.” He wore a wide, dark hat and a coat that could house a regiment.

“I know,” she said. They came to a stop at Washington Square, and Betty stepped up on a stone embankment, high enough that she could see eye-to-eye with her husband. “1 know, we could be recognized. Our cover could be blown. But every now and then, isn’t it nice to walk in the city and just say, to hell with it?”

“Yeah, well, except I feel so... old.” Bruce looked across Washington Square Park. There were students hanging out, crunchy granola types mixing the past and the future.

“But not like an outsider,” Betty said.

“No,” he answered. “Not in the way you mean.” She turned around and leaned back against the massive giant in the dark coat, looking at the cold streets, and they both breathed deeply.

“You should know that Morgan protected your secret,” Bruce said. “I didn’t even have to press him on it”

“You mean I can stay?” She sounded on the verge of crying. “The Faculty Senate isn’t going to suddenly le-am I’m a fugitive from justice and throw me out?”^-Well, God knows Morgan might ask you for a favor iter on. You might wish you hadn’t taken his help.”

¹ So, um,” she said, looking down. She ran her fingers through a strand of hair that fell from her wool hat. “I can’t believe I’m actually sayingv'³um.’ I’m always getting on my students about that. ’’ Betty cleared her throat. “So you’re gonna stay, too?”

“The only danger is to you, ' he said, slowly.

“You don’t have to ask me how I feel about that.”

After a wh^;,e he tapped her arm and gestured over his own shoulder. ‘Let’s get some hot chocolate.” She hopped off the cement block, once again three-quarters of his height. ‘ And of course, I’ll stay. I like it,” he said. “Hike L”

They stopped a block down at a vendor’s cart. Bruce hung back about twelve feet, in the shadows, dark entrance of an alleyway between two buildings, while Betty bought the chocolate. Bruce was looking down the alley when Betty whistled, holding one of the chocolates out. He took his and sipped it, letting the hot liquid run over his tongue.

Down the alley, Bruce saw something move. He turned his gaze in that direction in time to see a sewer cover swaying a bit, suspended by a shadowy shape underneath, the metal disk raised up nearly half a foot. Bruce stared at the shadow and looked back at Betty. It wasn’t the sewer cover that caught his eye, made him hand Betty his chocolate and apologize profusely, made him begin to move down the alley after telling her to meet him back home.

It was the pair of glowing, blinking red eyes underneath. The cover shut before Bruce even got near, but Bruce wasted no time bending down and wedging his pinky into the keyhole, lifting it. Vaguely, he heard Betty shout something about being careful. He would. He always would.

Bruce landed in the sewer tunnel, his feet hitting the floor of the tunnel with a splat “Come on, Emil,” he said, as he stood there, the surrounding few feet lit up by the light from the alley above. “I’m tired of this. ’

There was movement to his left, about ten feet down. Something stuck ts head around the comer, and Brace

became aware of a torch burning. Then he saw tne torch and the arm that bore it wave, gesturing with the torch. Bruce movec n that direction, hand running along the wet brick, listening. He could hear something, breathing, and, as he reached the comer, he heard—Kennedy?

,.. shall pay any price, bear any burden.. ..

Bruce turned the comer and saw flickering light, then realized it was still another turn away. He padded down the tunnel, listening to Kennedy and the dripping of the liquid in the pipes and the odd, rasping breath of the Abomination.

One more corner and the tunnel opened up into a wide section the size of Bruce’s living room. On the far end, the torch had been put into a crevice in the brick and hung there, lighting up the two long walls. Bruce barely had time to register that the walls were covered in glass screens when the living room under the city exploded in video.

Each wall lit up with pixellated images from damp ground to cobwebby ceiling. In all, there had to be twenty screens on each side, and Bruce stood between them, watching both walls, staring ahead. Across the room the tunnel shrank down and continued, and Brace saw a dark figure crouched there, back in the shadows, rasping, red eyes glowing, the slithery voice speaking. “Stop. Look, Bruce. Look. Look what I have to show you.”

Bruce watched the screens, all of them, the images blinking out into static and coming back, one after the other. Time bent forward and back, swooping close, to the present and zooming back, Kennedy and the blank check, Khrushchev and his shoe, Ike and the people who liked him.

“What is character⁹” the fiery eyes in the dark said. “What is an individual? Once I thought a man is defined by what he believes in. But that is not it. That is another way of saying a man is what he serves. And somehow that is not right. ”

There were too many images for Bruce to follow, but he couldn't help his eyes tracking as many as he could, his brain labelling each of them. Andropov, Right 007 a fireball in the sky, Sputnik.

“We are what we are. That’s simplistic, isn’t it?3 Emil said, and on Bruce’s right he caught a picture of Emil Blonsky, so large he filled all the screens on that side, young, with dark hair and a royal hawklike nose. And on the left, a young Bruce, a scrawny kid in a lab coat, hair greasy and unkempt, ugly purple cords. He was folding his arms, not looking at the camera, staring instead at a blackboard with a blurred diagram, just another pro iect, maybe. Maybe the gamma bomb. “Here we are Trapped in time, Bruce. This is us before the gamma wave. This is us before our cells were turned inside out and we were made new beings. We are what we are, so are we still the same?’-’.

Green, suddenly. Emerald and brilliant, flashing hard green and blinding bright, both walls lit up.

The desert, a field of green glass. Then the pictures again, young Emil. Young Brace.

“I ask you,” the figure in the dark rasped, “are we the same? I tell you' what I think. I think we are changed, and we change ourselves. But we cannot help what we become. We cannot help being what we have become. Do you understand? I make a choice, it affects me, and I become a new thing. But I must react in the nature of what I am.”

“That’s an excuse,” Bruce said.

“You’re not listening,” Emil said. “Look at these images, two men, Brace Banner and Emil Blonsky. And the gamma wave flies over us and we are gone, erased. All our hopes gone, all our dreams burnt to irradiated cinders. We have been made new beings. I am an Abomination. And you are a Hulk. We are not fit for humanity. You know it. Deep inside, you know it, as much as you do not wish to listen to me. We do not belong because of

what we are. And we cannot help being what we have become.”

The videos blinked off and Bruce looked back at the crouched figure. The only light in the tunnel came from those two, glimmering red eyes, and the flickering torch, die flames flickering madly off the dead monitor screens. “Can’t we?” Bruce asked, moving between the dark screens.

The crouching figure did not move. It did not breathe. And as Bruce stepped forward, reaching out, he already knew what was going to happen.

He touched the head, tipping it, and the electric eyes nickered as the stone gargoyle tipped sideways with the Hulk’s hand. It fell over, without drama, leaving a trail as it went down, the fins on the side of the head scraping their way down the muck-covered bricks.

‘Can’t we?” Bruce asked again, quietly, to no one in particular.

And the Hulk put his giant, green, unwieldy, dense hands in his pockets, in the dark, under the ground, far from the eyes of men. And he listened in his mind to the words of the Abomination and he considered the source, and he questioned their wisdom, and he doubted their truth. And in fear of those words he crouched by the gargoyle and closed his eyes, because he could look at the electric eyes no longer.