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view, E-Branch didn’t even exist. He occasionally forgot that the hotel had a top storey; which wasn’t strange, for he’d never seen it. The occupants of that unknown uppermost level had their own elevator situated at the rear of the building, private stairs also at the rear, even their own fire escape. Indeed, “they” owned the top floor, and so fell entirely outside the hotel’s sphere of management and operation.
    As to who “they” were: international entrepreneurs, or so the hotel manager had been given to understand; nor was he alone in his ignorance. For from the outside looking in, very few would suspect that the building in toto was anything other than it purported to be: an hotel. Which was exactly the guise or aspect, or lack of such, which “they” wished to convey. And so, except to its members, and to a select core of Very Important Persons in the Corridors of Power, who could be numbered on the fingers of one hand—only one of which, the Minister Responsible, knew the actual location of E-Branch HQ—the Branch simply did not exist.
    Yet paradoxically E-Branch’s existence and indeed its location were known of elsewhere in the world, to one organization at least and probably more than one. The Soviet equivalent knew of it certainly, and possibly China’s mindspy organization too. They knew about E-Branch HQ but made no great show of it—not yet. Let it suffice that the hotel had been earmarked and was a target; in the unlikely event of global conflict it would be an early casualty, simply because it gave the West too much of an edge.
    This was of small concern: since the end of World War Two inner London itself had been a target, as were all centers of government, finance, and commerce worldwide, not to mention a thousand military establishments. And for that matter, so were the Russian and Chinese ESP-agencies targets, including Soviet HQ on Protze Prospekt in Moscow, next door to the State Biological Research Laboratories. Also the Soviet “listening” cell in Mogocha near the Chinese border, where a team of telepaths kept an eye (or an ear) on the Yellow Peril; and likewise the Chinese outfit itself on Kwijiang Avenue, Chungking. The commencement of World War Three would be a hot time for espers, which was as good a reason as any why such agencies should work for its prevention. And so to all intents and purposes, perestroika and glasnost were still very much the order of the day.
    Which was why it came as no surprise to Trask when Chung told him, “Our ‘friends’ on Protze Prospekt have confirmed it: something has come through the Perchorsk Gate. They’ve got it trapped there and want our help with it—urgently.” He used the term “friends” loosely; the British and Soviet E-Branches had never been more than wary adversaries. In fact the Necroscope in his time had twice pared “the Opposition” down to the bone. But ever since the Chernobyl disaster, the Russians had been far less reluctant to ask for outside help. They’d asked for it not only with that horror but also with the decommissioning and mothballing of a dozen more outdated, outmoded and positively lethal nuclear reactors, and for ten years now the West had been helping them dispose of the rest of their seemingly endless toxic-waste junkyards. For Earth’s sake, if for no other good reason.
    As the elevator doors hissed open, letting them out into the main corridor, Trask said, “I think you’d better start at the beginning. Let me see the whole picture. Also, let’s have every available hand in on it. The Duty Officer, espers doing paperwork, administration: the whole shoot.”
    But Chung had anticipated him. “They’re waiting for us in the Ops room. But only Millie Cleary knows what it’s about. She was Duty Officer last night and took the call from Moscow just an hour ago. As for myself: I couldn’t sleep and came in early. Then, passing Harry’s room, I … I sort of felt it. By which time the head of