In a movement that only one pair of eyes could follow, he reached inside his coat and shot through the cloth of the lapel. Piazza looked faintly surprised and slumped limply to the floor. Stan smiled coldly at the others. "I assume the rest of you can be counted on?" After the others had left, the man in back walked up and introduced himself, flashing the small, fluorescent identity card that labeled him as having come from Thusca. "Tanner." Stan frowned. "Funny, I think I've heard the name before but I can't place it." "I met you briefly on Thusca," Tanner said easily. Stan shook his head. "No, it's before then." He paused. "But that's impossible!" Tanner raised his eyebrows. "Why?" Stan looked surprised. "Didn't they tell you? Just before I started on this mission, I lost my memory. Crack on the head or something. I only saw two people before I left and they were busy filling me on what I was supposed to do here. Didn't have time to see the doctors." He walked to the liquor cabinet and started mixing himself a drink. "I'll be seeing Mr. Ainsworth and Mr. Malcolm in a few months and maybe they can help me then." "You don't think your memory is liable to come back ... here, do you?" Tanner asked curiously. Stan laughed. "Not a chance--there's nothing that's apt to be familiar on _this_ planet!" He dropped in the ice cubes. "Still, it's awkward. For all I remember of my past life, I might as well have been born in a vat." Tanner smiled faintly. "I didn't know you were in the smuggling business." "It's a good front and one in which we won't get our own fingers dirty. Besides, you haven't asked me what we were smuggling." Tanner swirled his drink so the ice cubes clinked against the side. "Alright, what are we smuggling?" "Sometimes packages, sometimes suitcases, sometimes hat-boxes. Our men take receipt of the packages and deliver them to different destinations where they think they're going to be picked up. Perhaps a broom closet in a building, perhaps a trash box on a city street, maybe a locker in a train station. There's only two things I haven't told the men--what's in the boxes, and the fact that they're never going to be picked up." "What happens then?" Stan sat down in a leather upholstered chair and threw a leg over the arm. "Nothing. Not until November 4th, that is. At twelve noon, London time, half the cities of this world will be blown off the globe." Tanner looked puzzled. "So? The air forces the fleets, and the armies will still be intact." "They'll be much too busy to fight us," Stan said smoothly. "You see, Tanner, they'll be fighting each other." Which actually was very clever, Stan thought slowly. The divide and conquer theory. Each of the packages contained a Thuscan fusion weapon. Once they were set off, each country would think that another had sprung a sneak attack. November 4th, Tanner and he would strike. November 5th, the world would be in chaos. November 6th, the Thuscan fleet would land.