"A problem?"

"The other security guard, Rodriguez."

"The one who shot Killifer."

"Yes'm. He's nowhere to be found. Apparently took off for parts unknown. We found the stutter gun he used, he left it on the kitchen table, nice and neat. But his car's gone and him with it."

Rashid's brows knit. "Why would he run away?"

"That's what I'd like to know," said Ingersoll.

"Tomorrow," Joanna said firmly.

Ingersoll seemed to think it over for a heartbeat or two, then nodded and walked back into the dining room.

"Omar, thanks for coming over," Joanna said to Rashid. "I'm sorry if it looked as if I suspected you. It's been… it's been a terrible few hours."

Rashid knew he was being dismissed and he felt grateful for it. Getting to his feet, he asked, "Will you be all right? Do you need anything?"

"My doctor's here," she said, remaining seated on the sofa. "He's already dosed me with tranquilizers and God knows what else. He'll stay here in the house and there are the servants, of course."

"Of course," Rashid murmured, eager to get away, glad that the burning fury of her suspicion had passed over him.

Joanna summoned the butler, who accompanied Rashid to his car, then returned to the living room.

"What else can I do for you?" he asked.

"Nothing," she said. "That's all for now. Go get yourself some sleep."

"And you…?"

"I'll sleep here," Joanna said.

"I've had the guest suite prepared for you," the butler suggested.

She shook her head. "No, I don't want to go upstairs. Not just yet. I'll sleep here on the sofa. I'll be fine."

The butler left, silent as a shadow, then returned a moment later with a downy white blanket and a flowered pillow. Joanna watched him place them on the end of the sofa, then leave the room again.

I should cry, she told herself. I should let it come out. Lev didn't deserve this. It was me he was after. Lev died trying to save my life.

Instead of crying, she reached over to the phone console and told its voice-recognition system, "Get Seigo Yamagata for me. No intermediaries. This is an emergency call for him and no one else."

It's time to end this war, Joanna told herself.

EDITING BOOTH</p>

"Moonbase has survived the Peacekeepers' missile attack," Edith was saying into her microphone. "But not unscathed. The first missile destroyed Moonbase's backup power generator. That was a conventional explosive warhead and it hit the buried generator precisely."

The display screens running across the top of the control board showed the quiet frenzy of Moonbase's control center, the crowd milling around in The Cave, a view of the crater floor where Wicksen and his crew were riding back to the main airlock in a jouncing tractor, and the scene from Mount Yeager showing the Peacekeeper assault force's vehicles trundling up toward Wodjohowitcz Pass.