Oki added, unasked, "It was going to be wall-to-wall lawyers for them—President Kim, and Choi who runs Operations, and Napak, that research head.  Akabane caught us after the big meeting—said it was plain that him and us were going to be the goats, that the other three would hand us over without a blink in the morning if nothing was done.  But he knew from the last time that my brother-in-law was with the Legacy Liberators, and . . ."

"Division and panic, ah," said m'lord, sounding quite satisfied.  "That explains much.  Hurry, Roic.  Akabane's bound to bolt as soon as the police show up in force."

Raven was returning with a medkit.  Roic passed his stunner briefly to m'lord, circled Oki and fastened his wrists behind his back with his own tanglecuffs, was blandly handed back his weapon, grabbed Leiber's arm, and jogged for the end stairs.

"What do you want me for?" asked Leiber, sounding a touch alarmed, as they scuffed rapidly down the steps.

"You can ID Akabane for me.  I wouldn't want to stun the wrong fellow, after all."

"You're pretty free with that thing."

"It's all right.  I have a license to stun."

"I thought that was supposed to be a license to kill."

Roic grimaced.  "That, too.  But you would not believe all the forms that have to be filled out, afterward."

Leiber looked as if he weren't sure if that was a joke or not, which was all right, since Roic wasn't sure either.  The procedures hadn't been all that amusing at the time.  Or in retrospect.

They pushed through the heavy metal doors at the intake building's far end, turned left, and rounded the corner onto its long front side.  A short, U-shaped driveway in the center led to a covered entry space, where patients and visitors had once been dropped off, no doubt.  The drive embraced what had likely been a sweep of tidy lawn and landscaping, but now was a sad stretch of weeds.  There was no security lighting, but a lot of flickering hand lights revealed a herd of elderly people in all sorts of dress and undress, milling about on the drive and the ex-lawn.  To Roic's relief, no orange fire-glow reflected in the night mist from the other side of the complex, but various colors of flashing emergency lights did, which helped illuminate the scene in a dance-party sort of fashion.

A double row of parking spaces ran the length of the facility's front—Roic could see the end of the administration building, beyond the intake building, and mentally located Madame Suze's corner office on its top floor.  Beyond the parking row, the facility was bounded by the dilapidated chain link fence.

In the street beyond, only one or two dark and distant vehicles were parked, but just past the gate with its tumbled-down old security kiosk, a familiar van lurked in the shadows.  The gate, interestingly, had been forced open and left standing wide.