A quick little shimmer tingled the Bolan spine. He stood relaxed in the dark zone, but alert, legs apart in his skintight combat blacks and soft black shoes. He watched in the darkness now, taking position in the very background of the gloom as the wizard played his own penlight over a panel set into the wall next to the entrance to Charon's office.

The panel held a keyboard, and above it an LED display.

"Automatic access-control system," Gadgets said. He punched a digit at random.

It appeared in the display. Gadgets hesitated, punched another, then a third, fourth, and fifth.

Next to the five figures the display began to flash "ERROR," like an accusation. Gadgets hit the "clear" button and the display returned to darkness.

"Exactly one hundred thousand possible code combos, pal, Colonel Phoenix, sir!" Gadgets smiled. Then his brows knit in concentration as he made rapid mental calculation. "It would only take us maybe 28 hours to go through them, hitting one a second." He shook his head to himself. "There's another way, though, Sarge. Risky, but..."

"But we're this far into the cold damned chamber," quietly finished the warrior. "Let's play it."

Gadgets was already unzipping his military chest-pack, eagerly plucking tools and instruments from its interior.

Two Philips-head screws held the panel to the wall. "Charon is using a number-code system, which tells us that other people besides him have access to his office," Gadgets whispered as he went to work on them. "If he were the only one, he'd use a voice-activated circuit, or a thumbprint reader." The panel came free and Schwarz placed it on the carpeting, set the screws carefully in the holes. "That could mean other people have access to his terminal, maybe even his user code. If so, it makes life a lot easier for us.... Uh-oh. Command decision time, Sarge. The numbers just stacked up against us. In a big way."