"He sank with the laboratory barge after I shot him."

Casio moved around to the side of the bed. "You must come with us now."

"May I ask where you're taking me?" The voice was still soft and gracious. The blue eyes remained set.

They didn't notice her right hand move beneath the covers.

Pitt never really accounted for the instinctive move that saved his life. Maybe it was the sudden realization that the TV camera was not exactly shaped like a camera. Maybe it was the complete absence of fear in Min Koryo, or the aura that she was in firm command, but as the beam of light stabbed out from above her bed, he pitched himself to the floor.

Pitt rolled to his side, tugging the automatic from his coat. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the laser beam sweep the room, cutting through furniture, scorching the draperies and wallpaper with a needle-thin spear of energy. The gun was in his hands, blasting away at the electron amplifier. At his fourth shot, the beam blinked out.

Casio was still standing. He reached out toward Pitt and then stumbled and fell. The laser had cut through his stomach as neatly as a surgeon's scalpel. He twisted over on his back and stared up.

Casio was seconds away from death. Pitt wanted to say something, but he couldn't get the words out.

The case-hardened old investigator raised his head; his voice came in a rasping whisper. "The elevator . . . code four-one-onesix." And then his eyes went sightless and his breathing ceased.

Pitt took the transmitter from Casio's pocket, rose and trained the automatic just ten inches from Min Koryo's heart. Her face was locked in a fearless smile. Then Pitt lowered the gun and reached under the covers and silently lifted her out of the bed into her wheelchair.

She made no move to resist, spoke no words of defiance. She sat, wizened and mute, as Pitt pushed her into the corridor and onto a small lift that lowered them to the office floor. When they reached the reception lobby, she noted the unconscious security guard and looked up at him.

"What now, Mr. Pitt?"

"The final curtain for Bougainville Maritime," he said. "Tomorrow your rotten business will be no more. Your Oriental art objects will be given away to museums. A new tenant will come in and redecorate your offices and living quarters. In fact, your entire fleet of ships will be sold off. From now on the name of Bougainville will be nothing but a distant memory in newspaper microfilm files. No friends or relatives will mourn you, and I'll personally see that you're buried in a potter's field with no marker."

At last he had broken through and her face revealed a searing hate. "And your future, Mr. Pitt?"

He grinned. "I'm going to rebuild the car you blew up."

She weakly lifted herself from the wheelchair and spat at him.