hot on its heels-chaos!
  As the scream subsided Borowitz's eyes shot open, his heavy eyebrows forming a peaked 
tent over them. For an instant he sat there, a startled owl, nerves jumping, fingers 
clawing at the arms of his chair. Then he gave a hoarse shout, threw up an arm before his 
face, hurled his heavy body backward. His chair crashed over, allowing him to roll clear, 
protected by the chair to the left, as the screen caved inward in a shower of glass and 
small, buckling strips of lead. A large hole had appeared in the screen, with the legs of 
the steel chair from the other room protruding half-way through. The chair was snatched 
back out of sight-and again driven forward, smashing out the rest of the small panes and 
sending fragments of glass flying everywhere.
  'Swine!' Dragosani's shriek came from both the speaker and the shattered screen. 'Oh, 
you swine, Gregor Borowitz! You poisoned him-an agent to rot his brain-and now, you 
bastard, now I have tasted that same poison'
  From behind the outraged, hate-filled voice came Dragosani himself, to stand outlined 
for a moment in a frame of jagged, dangling glass teeth, before hurling himself across 
the table and tumbled chairs at Borowitz where he floundered on the floor. In his hand 
something glittered, silver against the grey of his flesh.
  'No!' Borowitz boomed, his bullfrog voice loud with terror in the confines of the small 
room. 'No, Boris, you're mistaken. You're not poisoned, man!'
  'Liar! I read it in his dead brain. I felt his pain as he died. And now that stuff is 
in me!' Dragosani leapt on to Borowitz where he fought to struggle to his feet, bore him 
down again, raised high the sickle shape of silver in his clenched fist.
  The man called Mikhail had been flapping in the background like a wind-torn scarecrow, 
but now he came forward, his hand reaching inside his overcoat. He caught Dragosani's 
wrist just as it commenced its downward sweep. Expert with a cosh, Mikhail applied it at 
precisely the correct point, just hard enough to stun. The bright steel flew from 
Dragosani's nerveless fingers and he fell face down across Borowitz, who managed to roll 
half out of the way. Then Mikhail was helping the older man to his feet, while Borowitz 
cursed and raved, kicking once or twice at the naked man where he lay groaning. Up on his 
feet, he pushed his junior away and began to dust himself down-but in the next moment he 
saw the cosh in Mikhail's hand and understood what had happened. His eyes flew open in 
shock and sudden anxiety.
  'What?' he said, his mouth falling open. 'You struck him? You used that on him? Fool!'
  'But Comrade Borowitz, General, he-'
  Borowitz cut him off with a snarl, pushed with both hands at Mikhail's chest and sent 
him staggering. 'Dolt! Idiot! Pray he is unharmed. If there's any god you believe in, 
just pray you haven't permanently damaged this man. Didn't I tell you he's unique?' He 
went down on one knee, grunting as he turned the stunned man over on to his back. Colour 
was returning to Dragosani's face, the normal colour of a man, but a large lump was 
growing where the back of his skull met his neck. His eyelids fluttered as Borowitz 
anxiously scanned his face.
  'Lights!' the old General snapped then. 'Let's have them up full. Andrei, don't just 
stand there like-' he paused, stared about the room as Mikhail turned up the lights. 
Andrei was not to be seen and the door of the room stood ajar. 'Cowardly dog!' Borowitz 
growled.
  'Perhaps he has gone for help,' Mikhail gulped. And continued: 'Comrade General, if I 
had not hit Dragosani he would have-'
  'I know, I know,' Borowitz growled impatiently. 'Never mind that now. Help me get him 
into a chair.'
  As they lifted Dragosani up and lowered him into a chair he shook his head, groaned 
loudly and opened his eyes. They focused on Borowitz's face, narrowing in accusation. 
'You!' he hissed, trying to straighten up but failing.
  'Take it easy,' said Borowitz. 'And don't be a fool, if you're not poisoned. Man, do 
you think I would so readily dispose of my most valuable asset?'
  'But he was poisoned!' Dragosani rasped. 'Only four days ago. It burned his brain out 
and he died in agony, thinking his head was melting. And now the same stuff is tin me! I 
need to be sick, quickly! I have to be sick!' He struggled frantically to get up.
  Borowitz nodded, held him down with a heavy hand, grinned like a Siberian wolf. He 
brushed back his centralStreak of jet-black hair and said, 'Yes, that is how he died-but 
not you, Boris, not you. The poison was something special, a Bulgarian brew. It acts 
rapidly... and disperses just as rapidly. It voids itself in a few hours, leaves no 
trace, becomes undetectable. Like a dagger of ice, it strikes then melts away.'
  Mikhail was staring, gaping like a man who hears something he can't believe. 'What is 
this?' he asked. 'How can he possibly know that we poisoned the Second in Command of the-'
  'Be quiet again Borowitz rounded on him. 'That loose tongue of yours will choke you 
yet, Mikhail Gerkhov!'
  'But -'
  'Man, are you blind? Have you learned nothing?'
  The other shrugged, fell silent. It was all beyond him, completely over his head. He 
had seen many strange things since he'd been transferred into the branch three years 
ago-seen and heard things he would never have believed possible-but this was so far 
removed from anything else he'd experienced that it defied reason.
  Borowitz had turned back to Dragosani, had clasped his neck where it joined his 
shoulder. The naked man was merely pale now, neither leaden grey nor fleshy pink but 
pale. He shivered as Borowitz asked him: 'Boris, did you get his name? Think now, for 
it's very important.'
  'His name?' Dragosani looked up, looked sick.
  'You said he was close to me, the man who plotted my assassination with that gutted dog 
in there. Who is he, Boris? Who?'
  Dragosani nodded, narrowed his eyes, said: 'Close to you, yes. His name is... Ustinov!'
  'Wha-?' Borowitz straightened up, realisation dawning.
  'Ustinov?' Mikhail Gerkhov gasped. 'Andrei Ustinov? Is that possible?'
  'Very possible,' said a familiar voice from the doorway. Ustinov stepped through it, 
his thin face lined and drawn, a submachine-gun cradled in his arms. He directed the 
weapon's muzzle ahead of him, carelessly aimed it at the other three. 'Definitely 
possible.'
  'But why?' said Borowitz.
  "But isn't that obvious, "Comrade General"? Wouldn't any man who'd been with you as 
long as I have, want to see you dead? Too many long years, Gregor, I've suffered your 
tantrums and rages, all your petty little intrigues and stupid bullying. Yes, and I 
served you loyally-until now. But you never liked me, never let me in on anything.What 
have I been-what am I even now but a cipher of J yourself, a despised appendage? Well, 
you'll be pleased to note that I am, after all, an apt pupil. But your deputy? No, I was 
never that. And I should step aside for this upstart?' he nodded sneeringly towards 
Gerkhov.
  Borowitz's face clearly showed his disgust. 'And you were the one I would have chosen!' 
he snorted. 'Hah! No fool like an old fool...'
  Dragosani groaned and lifted a hand to his head. He made as if to stand, fell out of 
the chair on to his knees, sprawled face down on the glass-littered floor. Borowitz made 
to kneel beside him.