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be used to covertly examine the facility’s computer records for anything untoward.
    While she waited, Lia took what looked like a bunch of small, flat spoons and a lipstick holder from the inside pocket of her jacket. Unscrewing the top of the lipstick holder, she slid one of the spoons into the slot and held it against the wall. As the truck roared past, she pressed the end of the lipstick holder and fired the spoon into the wall about head high. When the truck was gone, she used the small handhold to hoist herself up and then over.
    “What’s going on?” Rockman asked.
    “What do you mean?” she asked, taking out her compact and lipstick—the real one—and seeing to her makeup.
    “What are you doing?”
    “I’m smoking a joint.”
    “The patrol will be back in two minutes. You want them to see you?”
    “God, Rockman—why the hell do you think I’m wearing a skirt?”
    Lia walked in a diagonal across the perimeter road toward a garage building, once more treading in a black spot of the compound’s defenses. At the building, she opened the pack and took out her tiny Kahr, a custom-built pistol so small it could be palmed. Removing her handheld computer and a package of cigarettes, Lia took off her jacket and rolled it into a ball, sliding it into the backpack. Then she slid the ruck into an empty garbage can and put the lid on.
    “You hear me?”
    “Barely,” said Rockman.
    Lia adjusted her belt. The com system sent its signal from the belt to the jacket; the signal was low-power and worked in discrete bursts so that it was extremely difficult to detect.
    “Now?”
    “Still low.”
    “All right, hold on.” She took the backpack out and put it behind the garbage can rather than inside. “How’s that?”
    “We’ll fix the levels here,” said Telach. “Get into the building. You have three minutes.”
    “Stay to the left of that driveway,” added Rockman.
    Dating from the early seventies, the Drumund University Research Site/Hudson Valley Division Laboratory had been designed to be heated by solar energy. Two years after it opened, however, the trustees belatedly realized the system maintenance and electricity for the pumps cost five times the amount an old-fashioned gas-burning furnace would. The high-tech system had been scrapped in favor of an oil burner, but the large roof arrays with their water panels remained. Lia headed toward one now, climbing up a narrow metal access ladder to a mechanical door at the outside. There were two locks on the door: the first took five seconds to pick; the other was considerably more stubborn, giving way to her small file in just over thirty.
    Lia pulled the door open slowly, checking to make sure no one was there—the area wasn’t covered by the security cameras. Stepping onto the metal catwalk inside, she pulled off her belt and stuck it in the door, maintaining her connection with the com system.
    “I’m inside,” she said.
    “Yes,” said Rockman. “All right. You want that stairwell on the right.”
    Lia walked quickly to the stairway. The top of the stairway was clear, but the landing was covered by one of the video cams. Rockman had to blank the feed as she passed—a three-second blip. He had already gotten the security people used to the short blips over the past forty minutes; they had checked out the areas twice and now had a call in to their tech people about the problem.
    Actually, they thought they had a call in. Rockman had erased it from the voice mail system.
    “Ready?” Lia asked.
    “Hold just a second,” said Rockman.
    Lia took a long breath. “Find me a bathroom soon, all right?”
    “Should’ve thought about that before you left home,” replied the runner. “On my mark. Ready, set—”
    Lia pulled the door open as Rockman gave her the cue. She took three steps down the stairs, then vaulted over the side rail onto the next landing and repeated the procedure, deeking past a second camera.
    “Impressive,” said