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By Root 580 0

that he opened as he walked past the subject, without taking so much as a glance, letting his peripheral vision do the work. His eyes were fixed on the tail. Looked even younger than he and his brother were, probably his first job out of whatever academy the Security Service conducted, assigned to an easy target for that very reason. He'd probably be a little nervous, hence his fixed eyes and balled-fist hands. Dominic hadn't been all that different only a year or so before, in Newark, young and earnest. Dominic stopped and turned quickly, gauging the distance from Brian to Sali. Brian would be doing exactly the same thing, of course, and his job was to synchronize movement with his brother, who had the lead. Okay. Again his peripheral vision took over, until the last few steps.

Then his eyes fixed on the tail. The Brit's eyes noted this, and his gaze shifted as well. He stopped almost automatically and heard the Yank tourist ask stupidly: "Excuse me, could you tell me where " He held up his map book to illustrate how lost he was.

Brian reached into his coat pocket and pulled out the gold pen. He twisted the nib and the black point changed to an iridium tip when he pressed down on the obsidian clip. His eyes locked on the subject. At a range of three feet, he took half a step right as though to avoid someone who wasn't there at all, and bumped into Sali.

"The Tower of London. Why, you go right there," the MI5 guy said, turning to point.

Perfect.

"Excuse me," Brian said, and let the man pass with a half step to his left, and the pen came down in a backward stabbing motion, and caught the subject square in the right ass cheek. The hollow syringe point penetrated perhaps as much as three millimeters. The CO2 charge fired, injecting its seven milligrams of succinylcholine into the tissue of the largest muscle on Sali's anatomy. And Brian Caruso kept right on walking.

"Oh, thanks, buddy," Dominic said, tucking the Chichester's back into his pocket and taking a step in the proper direction. When he was clear of the tail, he stopped and turned-this was bad tradecraft, and he knew it-to see Brian putting the pen back into his coat pocket. His brother then rubbed his nose in the prearranged signal of MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.

Sali winced ever so slightly at the bump or stick-whatever it was-on his ass, but it was nothing serious. His right hand reached back to rub the spot, but the pain faded immediately, and he shrugged it off and kept heading for the shoe store. He took perhaps ten more steps and then he realized -his right hand was trembling ever so slightly. He stopped to look at it, reaching over with his left hand -that was trembling, too. Why was -his legs collapsed under him, and his body fell vertically down to the cement sidewalk. His kneecaps positively bounced on the surface, and they hurt, rather a lot in fact. He tried to take in a deep breath to ward off the pain and the embarrassment -but he didn't breathe. The succinylcholine had fully infused his body now, and had neutralized every nerve-muscle interface that existed in his body. The last to go were his eyelids, and Sali, his face now rapidly approaching the sidewalk, didn't see himself hit. Instead, he was enveloped by blackness-actually, redness from the low-frequency light that penetrated the thin tissue of his eyelids. Very rapidly, his brain was overwhelmed first by the confusion that had to come before panic.

What is this? his mind demanded of itself. He could feel what was happening. His forehead was against the rough surface of semi-finished cement. He could hear the footsteps of people to his left and right, He tried to turn his head-no, first he had to open his eyes -but they did not open. What is this?!!! -he wasn't breathing -he commanded himself to breathe. As though in a swimming pool underwater, and coming to the surface after holding his breath for an uncomfortably long time, he told his mouth to open and his diaphragm to expand -but nothing happened! -What is this? his mind shouted at itself.

His body operated on its own programming. As