WITH THE LIGHTNINGS(72)

Adele opened Warehouse 50's three separate locks. Daniel and Hogg were in conversation through the cab window about the next stage of the escape. Woetjans and Dasi had the door in motion almost before Adele's finger left the last key. A dozen more sailors jostled her as they sped the panel fully open. Adele stepped out of the way.

Working around these Cinnabar sailors was like using a powerful machine. You had to be very careful of where you stood when you put them in motion.

Warehouse 50 was at the end of a row. On the farther side was woven-wire fencing and supposedly a minefield. Mines didn't seem practical in the marshy ground beyond the fenceline, but the bog itself was a considerable barrier to anyone trying to break in.

Farther still to the north, the sky over Kostroma City glowed. Occasionally a fleck of greater brightness snapped through the night; projectiles, she supposed, but they could have been reflections from an aircar.

Sounds were lost in the distance. All Adele could hear from where she stood were the cries of seabirds and valves slapping at the mouth of the Navy Pool. The tide was coming in to fill the lagoon.

"Found it, sir!" a sailor called from the mouth of the warehouse. "How much do we take?"

"Four—no, six cases!" Daniel said, stepping from the driver's side running board to look into the building. "And the stronger the better. Brandies, not wine, all right?"

Adele saw a spotlight finger the roof of the warehouse on the other side of this short street. The beam dropped to vanish in the skyglow. "Someone's coming!" she called. "On the main—"

A four-wheeled vehicle pulled across the intersection, blocking the only way for the Cinnabars to get out. The passenger in the vehicle's open cab shone a spotlight down this street as he had the one before. The beam locked on the sailors and Hogg's van with its nose toward the open warehouse.

"Hold where you are!" a woman's voice ordered. "Get your hands up!"

Adele couldn't see well against the beam of the spotlight, but she could make out several figures in the back of the other vehicle. One of them was manning the automatic impeller mounted on a pintle in the middle of the deck.



Daniel stepped forward, twisting his mouth into a smile as the gun truck pulled into the cul-de-sac. The truck's twin headlights lit the van and the Cinnabars around it, so the officer in the passenger's seat turned her spotlight on the warehouse door. There were half a dozen ratings inside, but Woetjans, who had the only pistol, was in plain view.

Four Kostroman sailors were in the back of the truck. On the sleeves of their utility uniforms were broad white armbands with embroidered anchors: this was a detachment of Shore Police. Three carried stocked impellers, while the last was behind the automatic weapon trained on Daniel's navel. A submachine gun stood upright in a boot between the driver and passenger so that either could grab it at need.

"It's all right, officer," Daniel called, wondering if his accent was going to be a problem again. "We're authorized to be here. The password's Greatorix, and Admiral Sanaus gave us the door codes, as you see."

He wanted to shade his eyes from the headlight glare, but he decided that would be a bad idea. He was better off showing the police a pleasant smile than looking uncomfortable for any reason whatever.

"Put your damned hands up!" the officer repeated. The gun truck stopped ten feet from Hogg's van; she stood but didn't get out of the vehicle. "How many of you are there, anyway? They told me there was two civilians and a lieutenant."

She sounded peevish. Daniel couldn't see her rank tabs at this distance but she couldn't be more than a lieutenant. There was nothing obviously wrong about Daniel's presence here—he had the codes and password, just as he'd said. He'd never known an RCN shore policeman to cut any slack for personnel in the real navy, though, and he didn't imagine the situation was different on Kostroma.

An unusually loud explosion in Kostroma City made roofing tiles click here in the warehouse compound. The muzzle of the automatic impeller wobbled as the gunner holding the grips flinched. The Shore Police would know just enough about the coup to make them nervous, but that didn't make the Cinnabars' situation easier.

"Nobody's supposed to enter the compound tonight," the officer said. She remained standing in the cab of her vehicle. "I want you all in line against the front of the building. Everybody in the building come out right now or by God I'll blow you out!"

"Sir, there's plenty of liquor here to go around," Hogg called in an ingratiating voice. "Maybe the lady and her friends would like a case to, you know, make their duty easier?"

"Who are you?" the officer said on a rising note. She unhooked her holster flap with one hand and gripped her pistol with the other. "Who do you think—"