Two nights later, when finally people began to leave the summit meetings at four a.m., Nambu took Ken and the others aside. "Aleksandra Demakova is missing," he said. "She did not arrive tonight, and we have heard nothing. Attempts to reach the place she was staying have yielded nothing."

Ken glanced at the dark windows. He felt like he'd been up for days, but it hadn't quite been 24 hours yet. "When was she supposed to get here?"

"Seven."

"Is anyone else missing?" Jun said.

"Not tonight. Mahadeva Bahskar Yamunun didn't show up the night before last, and when we tried to contact him, we learned he'd had a heart attack. He's all right, but the Pakistani government is sending someone to take his place in the final meetings tomorrow."

"But you were able to contact Yamunun's people."

"Yes. We can't get anyone at the Utoland WMA headquarters. They keep suites for their dignitaries and researchers, since their people travel among their institutes on a regular basis. Particularly since Galactor's been targeting them so much lately, Ms. Demakova's people preferred to have her stay there. But we're concerned.

"I want you to go check things out, but I also need you here. So I'd like two of you to stay and three of you to go." He glanced at Ken, reaching for the doorhandle. "You decide who's where. I need to get back."

The decision wasn't tough. Ken knew who would complain the most about being left behind. Jinpei was already jumping from one foot to the other in his eagerness to do something besides guard closed doors. Joe leaned against the wall, as stoic as always, but he'd be pissed if he had to stay.

"Jun and Ryu, you watch things here, and we'll be back in an hour or so. We'll call if we need backup."

Ryu groaned. "Just like always. Stay behind and watch the ship."

Jun smiled at him. "I'm staying too."

"Yeah, but I always gotta stay."

"Quit complaining," Joe said. "These people will clear out soon and you'll be able to get some sleep. We gotta be here again at nine a.m., and it's starting to wear on me."

Ryu frowned, and so did Jinpei. Jinpei looked like maybe he didn't want to go after all. "Can onechan go instead?"

Jun shrugged agreeably, and Ken rolled his eyes. "Fine, but let's go. The sooner we do this, the sooner we get back."

- - -

Ken already knew exactly where they were going, since he'd followed Aleksandra there before, but he still listened to the directions one of the ISO datatechs provided. The man added the information that some of the suites were on a sublevel, for added security.

From the sunlight, Ken thought.

"Weird," Joe said.

The building was lit on the outside exactly the same way it had been before, but that didn't mean anything. The three of them went in through the side doors and checked the lobby. They found a small smear of blood on the elevator doors, and droplets dried into the busy carpet pattern inside the car, but nothing more.

Ken led Joe and Jun down the corridors he'd followed Aleksandra through before, and they paused only briefly at each one as Jun shorted the security doors.

They rode the elevator down, pausing at each sublevel. The first and second were labs, the third contained offices, and the fourth had a dead body in the hall.

Ken recognized Robert, the limousine driver. Jun looked away. Joe looked angry. All three of them looked at the heavy door.

"All right." Jun stepped gingerly over the body and produced a screwdriver so thin it could have doubled as a stiletto. She removed the casing covering the security panel and began to reach inside, then shook her head, staring at the wires.

"What's the problem?" Ken said.

"This is…something different than I've ever seen before."

Joe moved closer to look over her shoulder. "If we load it up with explosives…?"

She shook her head, indicating something inside the box with her screwdriver.

"Oh," Joe said, as if that explained everything. "And you don't know how to bypass it?"

"I don't even know where to start. This thing has more failsafes than anything I've ever seen. I'm more likely to force it to lock down completely than I am to get us through this door." She looked back at Ken. "I saw computer terminals on the second sublevel. If we go back up there, I can try to hack the security system and get us in that way."

Ken stepped back so she'd have room to come back across the body.

On the second sublevel, Jun sat down at one of the machines and quickly bypassed the password-locked screensaver. She opened a DOS command screen and did things Ken didn't understand.

"This is interesting," she said, sitting back to look at one of the screens she'd pulled up.

"What is?"

"This is a log for that security system downstairs. It's set so only Ms. Demakova can go in and out, and it will seal for a minimum of twelve hours if someone else tries to breach it. And based on the log, the number of times she's logged in and out--the code is slightly different for when it's being opened from the inside as opposed to the outside--she's not in there now. She let herself out shortly before she should have reached the ISO consulate."

"So something happened en route," Joe said.

"I don't think we should waste our time trying to get into that room," Jun said. She sat back and let her hands fall into her lap. "She's not in there."

"We're not going to get any sleep tonight, are we?" Joe muttered.

"Where do we start?" Jun said at the same time.

"I think we need to go through this building first," Ken said. "Especially since we found the blood in the elevator. And the body downstairs."

Unfortunately, the building wasn't just big, it was tall. Even after Jun used the computer to disengage most of the security doors, there was plenty to do with all those labs and offices to search.

They contacted each other every time one of them found something--like the bags of research blood torn open and poured down sink drains, or the open bag of silver nitrate. More often, one of them found someone. Most of the bodies had been mutilated like Robert's, and Ken began to suspect they'd find Aleksandra's remains in the same condition.

But when he did find her, on the top floor of the building, in a rich, soaring office, she was still in one piece. Technically.