There was a fountain pen on the writing desk. Gray picked it up and tossed it at Dunbar's chest. "Here, draw us a little diagram. I want to know where her cell is. Exactly where it is."

"Nicky, this is starting to become—"

"And show me where the guards are posted. We'll need to know that, won't we?"

"Nicky, for Godsakes. What can you hope to accomplish?"

Then, yanking the telephone from the wall: "It's like this, Charlie. You put her in there, and now you're going to get her out."

It was a slow two miles from the Continental to Saint-Lazare, even slower if one avoided the boulevards. Then too, Dunbar drove badly, stalling twice on the rue de Caire and once more below the Ménagérie. It was also raining again.

Dunbar was to stop the car at the edge of the prison walls, Gray said. From there they would walk to the main gate. Once they met the guards he was to identify himself and demand to see the prisoner. A wrong word or gesture would end his life.

"Nicky, let me just say one thing."

"As soon as she's out of there, we'll walk back to the car. Do you understand?"

"Look, I don't even have the authority to do this."

Gray laid the revolver's muzzle against Dunbar ribs. "Then you had better get the authority."

The rain had subsided to a drizzle by the time they were in sight of the prison walls. As they stepped out of the car Gray put his raincoat over his arm to conceal the revolver, then moved to Dunbar's side and they continued on foot toward the main gates.

The approach to the gate was long and narrow, a cobbled stretch of road between the high walls. Except for the gatehouse and the towers above, nothing was lighted. As Gray moved to Dunbar's side he again shifted the revolver to Dunbar's ribcage, proding him forward. It was quiet again, with only the sound of their heels on the cobbles, and possibly her heartbeat synchronizing with his step . . .

He supposed that this was the war that he had always been fighting: this concrete in no-man's-land, this slow walk to the enemy trench, this borrowed revolver and ridiculous yet vicious hostage. If the tactics were a bit unorthodox, it was only because the odds were so outrageous—an army of one against the world. Their world.