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knew without being told—but she let him continue.
    “Tomorrow Brooklyn and Queens,” he said. “Then a Greyhound to Albany.”
    She glanced down at his ungloved hands. His right hand glistened faintly in the weak
     sunlight, the only hint of its powdery coating.
    The man followed her gaze and held up his right hand self-consciously. His smile was
     almost embarrassed, sheepish.
    “The hand of God?” he muttered. He dropped his arm back to his side.
    “Well,” he said. “I guess I’d best be on my way.”
    “Yes,” said Milandra. “Me too. I’ve dallied here long enough. Good luck. We’ll meet
     again soon. At the airport.”
    “Yes,” said the man. “Till then.”
    He turned away and began to stride purposefully toward the park exit. Milandra watched
     him until he crossed the road and was lost to sight down Seventh Avenue, heading for
     Times Square.
    She turned her face up to the sun and closed her eyes for a few moments. Then she
     stood and walked back to her apartment.

Chapter Four
    I t had gone four o’clock by the time Troy Bishop returned to his apartment, foot-sore
     but exultant. The first hint of dawn was streaking the sky as he let himself in, closing
     and locking the door behind him.
    He extracted the polythene bag from the pocket of his shorts. Almost a third of the
     powder remained, which pleased him. The way it gleamed faintly in the moonlight when
     he rubbed it onto things had caused him to christen the powder ‘Moondust’. He had
     already covered a large part of the city, jogging and pausing to touch things and
     jogging again, and would probably only use half of what remained in the bag in finishing
     Sydney off. That would leave him with a plentiful supply for the airport and the capital,
     Canberra, then every coastal settlement between Sydney and Melbourne.
    By the time he reached Melbourne, half the population of Sydney would likely already
     be dead and the other half dying.
    Bishop threw back his head and laughed long and hard. Tears of mirth squeezed helplessly
     from his eyes and rolled down his chiselled cheekbones. The fit of laughter became
     so prolonged that he had to sit on the bed until at last it passed, leaving him with
     an aching stomach and a general feeling of weakness that he didn’t like one bit and
     that drove away the last vestiges of humour.
    He needed to be in the sun.
    He began casting around the apartment, deciding what he would need on his journey,
     though he preferred to think of it more as a crusade. A giggle rose unbidden in his
     throat and he quickly banished it.
    A few changes of clothes went into a suitcase—he may have limited opportunity to buy
     more as he travelled. He paused at his dressing table, eyeing his collection of gold
     jewellery. Monetary value would soon become meaningless, but he liked the weight of
     the bracelet on his wrist and the pendant around his neck. Shrugging, he put them
     on. Gathering the rings and watches (by Cartier, Rolex and Hublot) and chains, all
     gold, all satisfyingly heavy, he chucked them into the case on top of the clothes.
    Into another case he packed bottles of water and foodstuff, mainly tinned and dried.
     The suitcases were small—his car was built for speed, not storage—but they held sufficient
     for his needs.
    Finally, he retrieved a small holdall from the top shelf of his walk-in wardrobe.
     Into this went a couple more bottles of water, a few thousand dollars in cash and
     the silvery metallic canister. From the drawer of his bedside table, he removed a
     black automatic pistol and a box of cartridges. The handle of the pistol was smooth
     and gleamed as though well-handled. The pistol and box of cartridges went into the
     bag, too, alongside the canister. The polythene bag went back into the pocket of his
     shorts.
    He attached the shoulder strap to the holdall and hoisted it over his right shoulder.
     At the door, he looked back at his apartment. He liked this apartment; loved this