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"Well"

He waited a long time Then he said, "You’re like sisters, you two And if you can’t turn for help to a sister at a tiet Theluess we have to try"

"First thing in the ht of rain, and rain also filled her dreahtning, as well She woke in terror, but the rainy night in Santa Ana was unht, noisy omens of death It was a co, and wind, though she knew that it would not always be so

The machinery clicked and hummed

Erich Klietmann looked at the clock In just three minutes the research team would return to the institute

Two scientists, heirs of Penlovski and Januskaya and Volkaw, stood at the prograes

All the light in the room was unnatural, for the ere notenemy bombers, but were bricked in for security reasons The air was stuffy

Standing in one corner of the ate, Lieutenant Klietmann anticipated his trip to 1989 with excitement, not because that future was filled onders but because the ave him an opportunity to serve der Furhrer in a way that few er, the wo with Hitler, a chance to see the great h that touch to feel the power, the tremendous power of the German state and people and history and destiny The lieutenant would have risked death ten tiht to the personal attention of der Furhrer, to make Hitler aware of him, not aware of him as just another SS officer, but aware of him as an individual, as Erich Klietmann, the man who saved the Reich from the dire fate that it had almost been forced to endure

Klietmann was not the Aryan ideal, and he was acutely aware of his physical shortco slavic rel, which h his other three grandparents and both of his parents had been blond, blue-eyed, with Nordic features, Erich had hazel eyes, dark hair, and the heavier, randfather He loathed the way he looked, and he tried to coilant Nazi, eous soldier, and most ardent supporter of Hitler in the entire Schutzstaffel, which was tough because he had so much competition for that honor Solory But he never gave up, and now here he was, on the brink of heroism that would earn hier personally, not only because that would win der Furhrer’s favor but because Krieger was the Aryan ideal, blond and blue-eyed, every feature truly Nordic, and froer had chosen to betray his Furhrer, and that enraged Klietreatness under the burden of enes

Noith little more than two h the gate from 1989, Kliet executives of another age, and he felt both a fierce and a sentiht tears to his eyes

They had all cos Unterscharfuhrer Felix Hubatsch, Klieteant and second in command of the unit, was the son of an alcoholic lathe operator and a slattern mother, both of whom he despised RottenFurhrer Rudolph von Manstein was the son of a poor farmer whose lifetime of failure shamed him, and RottenFurhrer Martin Bracher was an orphan In spite of co from four different corners of Gereant, and lieutenant Kliet that made them as close as brothers: They understood that a man’s truest, deepest, and dearest relationship was not to his family but to the state, to the fatherland, and to their leader in whom the fatherland was embodied; the state was the only fale bit of wisdom elevated them and made them worthy fathers of the superrace to come

Klietmann discreetly dabbed at the corners of his eyes with his thu the nascent tears that he was not able to suppress

In one minute the research team would return

The machinery clicked and hummed

At three o’clock, Friday afternoon, January 13, a white pickup entered the rainswept , and parked next to the Buick that bore a Nissan’s license plates The truck was about five or six years old The passenger-side door was dented, and that rocker panel was spotted with rust The oas evidently refinishing the pickup in a patchwork fashion, because some spots had been sanded and primed but not yet repainted

Laura watched the truck from behind the barely parted drapes at the motel-roomShe held the Uzi in one hand at her side

The truck’s headlights blinked off, and its windshield wipers stopped, and a ot out and walked to the door of Laura’s unit She rapped three ti at his mother

Laura nodded

Chris opened the door and said, "Hi, Aunt Thel Chris fiercely, Thelma said, "Well, thanks a lot And ould you say if I told you that was a ly nose you were born with, but you’re stuck with it, while I’? Huh? What would you say then?"

Chris giggled "Nothing ’Cause I know I’ve got a cute nose"

"Cute nose? God, kid, you’ve got an actor’s ego" She let go of hi in one of the chairs near the TV set, then turned to Laura "Shane, did you see the heap I pulled up in? A in my Mercedes, I said to myself, Thel to draw a hell of a lot of attention at that sleazy motel when you pull up in a sixty-five-thousand-dollar car? So I tried to borrow the butler’s car, but you knohat he drives? A Jaguar Is Beverly Hills the Twilight Zone, or what? So I had to borrow the gardener’s truck But here I a a kinky blond wig glittering with droplets of rain, horn-riave her an overbite

"You look better this way," Laura said, grinning

Thelma popped out the fake teeth "Listen, once I turned up a set of wheels that wouldn’t draw attention, I realized that I’d draw so And since theup the fact that you and I are friends and have tried to ask un-packing authoress, I decided to coe teeth on the bed ’ ’This getup was for a new character I created in ht tias It was a primo flop, that character The audience spat at uard and tried to have ht to share the same planet with them-oh, they were rude, Shane, they were-"

Suddenly she halted in the middle of her patter and burst into tears She rushed to Laura, threw her arms around her "Oh, Jesus, Laura, I was scared, I was so scared When I heard the news about San Bernardino,Bear, I thought youorThel her, Laura said, "I’ll tell you all about it, but the ht, and we think et out of the hole we’re in"

"Why didn’t you call ! Two days after you’re splashed all over the newspapers 1 nearly went crazy"

"I’m sorry I should’ve called sooner I just didn’t want to get you involved if I could avoid it"