Lightning

pierced his heart, for there was only a small spot of blood on his shirt; his circulation had been cut off in an instant.
    Stefan backed out of the room, closed the door. He crossed the reception lounge and, stepping into the hall, shut the outer door too.
    His heart was racing. With those two murders he had cut himself off forever from his own time, his own people. From here on, the only life for him was in Laura's time. Now there was no turning back.
    With his hands—and the gun—jammed in his lab-coat pockets, he went down the hall toward Januskaya's office. As he neared the door, two of his other colleagues came out of it. They said hello as they passed him, and he stopped to see if they were heading for Penlovski's office. If they were, he'd have to kill them too.
    He was relieved when they stopped at the elevators. The more corpses he left strewn around, the more likely someone would be to stumble across one of them and sound an alarm that would prevent him from setting the timer on the explosives and escaping by way of the Lightning Road.
    He went into Januskaya's office, which also had a reception area. At the desk, the secretary—provided, as Anna Kaspar had been, by the secret police—looked up and smiled.
    "Is Dr. Januskaya here?" Stefan asked.
    "No. He's down in the documents room with Dr. Volkaw."
    Volkaw was the third man whose overview of the project was great enough to require that he be eliminated. It seemed a good omen that he and Wladyslaw Januskaya were conveniently in the same place.
    In the documents room, they stored and studied the many books, newspapers, magazines, and other materials that had been brought back by time travelers from scheduled jaunts. These days the men who had conceived of Lightning Road were engaged in an urgent analysis of the key points at which alterations in the natural flow of events could provide the changes in the course of history that they desired.
    On the way down in the elevator, Stefan replaced the pistol's silencer with the unused spare. The first would muffle another dozen shots before its sound baffles were seriously damaged. But he did not want to overuse it. The second silencer was additional insurance. He also quickly exchanged the half-empty magazine for a full one.
    The first-floor corridor was a busy place, with people coming and going from one lab and research room to another. He kept his hands in his pockets and went directly to the documents room.
    When Stefan entered, Januskaya and Volkaw were standing at an oak table, bent over a copy of a magazine, arguing heatedly but in low voices. They glanced up, then immediately continued their discussion, assuming that he was there for research purposes of his own.
    Stefan put two bullets in Volkaw's back.
    Januskaya reacted with confusion and shock as Volkaw flew forward into the table, driven by the impact of the nearly silent gunfire.
    Stefan shot Januskaya in the face, then turned and left the room, closing the door behind him. Not trusting himself to speak to one of his colleagues with any degree of self-control or coherence, he tried to appear to be lost in thought, hoping that would dissuade them from approaching him. He went to the elevators as quickly as possible without running, went to his third-floor office, reached behind the file cabinet, and twisted the dial on the timer as far as it would go, giving himself just five minutes to get to the gate and away before the institute was reduced to burning rubble.
7
    By the time the school year began, Laura had won approval for Chris to receive his education at home, from a state-accredited tutor. Her name was Ida Palomar, and she reminded Laura of Marjorie Main, the late actress in the Ma and Pa Kettle movies. Ida was a big woman, a bit gruff, but with a generous heart, and she was a good teacher.
    By the Thanksgiving school break, instead of feeling as if they were imprisoned, both she and Chris had accommodated to the relative isolation in which they lived. In fact they had actually come to enjoy the special closeness that developed between them as a result of having so few other people in their lives.
    On Thanksgiving Day Thelma called from Beverly Hills to wish them a happy holiday. Laura took the call in the kitchen, which was full of the aroma of roasting turkey. Chris was in the family room, reading Shel Silverstein.
    "Besides wishing you a happy holiday," Thelma said, "I'm calling to invite you down here to spend Christmas week with me and