Hell's Gate

been programmed to meet any contingency. Kneeling, he removed his rucksack from his back, took out what he needed, replaced it He took the small, brass-like coin he had gotten from the pack, held it flat against the glass of the storm door. There was a faint buzzing sound like a swarm of angry bees hovering out above the orchard. He moved the coin upwards, along the edge of the glass, leaving emptiness behind as the glass powdered and drifted silently down onto his feet. When he had created a hole large enough to reach through, he unlocked the door from inside, swung it open.
        The heavy wooden door beyond had only one window, a small oval three quarters of the way up. He used the coin to dissolve this, reached through, searching for the lock. His fingers just barely touched it, but he managed to throw it open. With his hand on the outer knob, he swung the portal inward, gaining access to the darkened kitchen.
        The interior of the house had been ripped apart at one time, for though the shell was Victorian, the guts were supermodern. The kitchen was large, ringed with dark wood cupboards and shelves. In the center of the red stone floor was a heavy slab of wood that served as a table and cookery work area. In it were built a sink, disposal, and an oven with all its fixtures gleaming in the thin light that came through the two airy windows.
        The Puppet took all this in without really examining anything. His perceptions were sharp, quick, like those of a wild animal. He moved from the kitchen into a tastefully decorated dining area; from there into a living room where the furniture alone would have bought half a dozen Asian families out of poverty. When he found the steps and started up them, his breathing quickened, though he did not know or care why.
        At the top of the carpeted stairs, he clung to the shadows along the left wall, staying away from the windows on the other side-an act of instinct more than planning. He breathed through his mouth to cut down on the noise his lungs made. Ten feet from the head of the stairs, he stopped, scanned ahead. When he found the door he wanted, he moved farther along the corridor. When he reached the proper door, he leaned against it, putting his ear to the wood. For a moment, there was no sound. Then he detected the heavy exhalations of a sleeper. Stealthily, he reached out, took the cool brass doorknob in his hand, turned it,
        He opened the door, walked into the room and crossed swiftly to the bed where the man laid with his back to the wall, facing the open room just as any man who must be careful learns to sleep. The Puppet judged the position of the body, then brought his hand up, palm flattened for the blow. Before he could swing, however, there was an exclamation from the sleeping man. He started to sit up, turned and dived for a cubbyhole in the headboard.
        The Puppet corrected his aim, swung his stiffened hand, felt the blow connect solidly with the stranger's neck. The man grunted, crashed into the headboard he had been trying to reach, bounced back onto the mattress and was still.
        Without wasting any time in self-congratulations, the Puppet found the switch on the reading lamp built into the back of the bed. The fixture dropped a puddle of light onto the center of the rumpled bedclothes. He hefted the unconscious man around until his face was in the middle of the puddle. A broad forehead framed with sparse, black hair. Eyes set deep and close together. A heavy, broken nose, broken more than once; thick lips, a brutish chin, a scar along the left jawline. It was the right man, though the Puppet did not even know his name.
        Turning from the unconscious stranger, he slipped the pack off his back and set it down on an easy chair on the other side of the room. His fingers moved nimbly as he unstrapped its flap and peered inside, removed a pistol and a clip of ammunition. He took out a pair of gray gloves, slipped them on, then loaded the weapon. It was a very authentic weapon, one that fitted the decade of the 1970's; one that could even be traced to its original place of purchase, though the records of its owner were lost. When he was done, he would wipe all surfaces clean of prints, even though his own prints were not on file anywhere in the world and never would be. If the surfaces were smeared, the police would assume a known criminal had been responsible, a man hiding his traces carefully. Another false