"Are you sure about this?" he said, taking the half-smoked pipe from his mouth and tapping it out on his heel. He was standing beside his car on Scottish Hill, a city park which gave extensive view's of Madison's southern and western suburbs. A brief rain shower had just passed over and he had been savouring the cleansed air. The museum section, which included 1990 Street, was less than four kilometres away and with unaided vision he could see the movement of traffic at some of its intersections, vapour-fuzzed glints of morning sun.

"Pretty sure," replied Jim Mellor, his senior deputy, who was on duty in the downtown operations centre. Two of the new detectors picked up the remnants of a signal from a Lakes Arsenal product identity tag. Somebody has done his damndest to erase it, but enhancement of what's left indicates a TL37 fuse."

"That means a small bomb."

"Small enough to fit in your pocket — big enough to zap twenty or thirty people." Mellor quoted the figures without relish. "I don't like this, Carry. We've called in all patrols, but they're way out in the sticks and it's going to be twenty minutes before anybody shows."

"Tell them to come in low and quiet, and to land at least a kilometre away from the Street — if our visitor sees any fliers he's likely to pop his cork." Dallen was getting into his car as he spoke. "Can you tell which way he's heading?"

"He was sniffed out on the corner of Ninth, and then on Eighth. My guess is he'd heading for the Exhibition Centre itself. Going for the biggest number of casualties."