"I agree," Stillwell said. "In any case, the wily old bastard is probably already regretting putting his signature to that thing. But what about his supplies?"

"Oh, we'll see he gets those because I want him actively on our side taking on the Japanese. The Hong Kong business was never serious, Joe. I thought we ought to get something out of the deal if we could, and the Hong Kong thing was all that the Prime Minister and I could come up with. Not that it matters now, we've got far more serious things to consider." He walked back to the wall map. "Now show me exactly where those Japanese forward units are."

1993 LONDON

Norah Bell got out of the taxi close to St. James's Stairs on Wapping High Street. She paid off the cab driver and walked away, a small, hippy, dark-haired girl in leather jacket, tight black mini skirt, and high-heeled ankle boots. She walked well with a sort of total movement of the whole body. The cab driver watched her put up her umbrella against the heavy rain, sighed deeply, and drove away.

She paused on the first corner and bought an Evening Standard. The front page was concerned with only one thing, the arrival of the American President in London that day to meet with both the Israeli and British Prime Ministers, to discuss developments in the Palestinian situation. She folded the newspaper, put it under her left arm, and turned the corner of the next street, walking down toward the Thames.

The youth standing in a doorway opposite was perhaps eighteen and wore lace-up boots, jeans, and shabby bomber jacket. With the ring in his left nostril and the swastika tattooed on his forehead, he was typical of a certain type of gang animal that roamed the city streets in search of prey. She looked easy meat and he went after her quickly, only running in at the last minute to grab her from behind, one hand over her mouth. She didn't struggle, went completely still which should have told him something, but by then he was beyond reason, charged with the wrong kind of sexual excitement.