He rammed an elbow against the man's chin, then tightened his finger on the grip of the Llama. He almost had it.
With his other hand he shoved the kobun's face away, clawing at his eyes, and again they rolled over, with the Japanese once more against the carpet. But now he had the gun and he was turning.
He felt a sharp jab in his back, a flash of pain that seemed to come from nowhere. It was both intense and numbing, as though his spine had been caught in a vise. Then he felt his heart constrict, his orientation spin. He rolled to the side, flailing an arm to try and recover his balance, but the room was in rotation, his vision playing tricks.
The one thing he did see was Vera Karanova standing over him, a blurred image his mind tried vainly to correct. Her face was faltering, the indistinct outlines of a desert mirage. Was she real or was he merely dreaming?
. . . Now the room was growing serene, a slow-motion phantasmagoria of pastel colors and soft, muted sounds. He tried to reach out, but there was nothing. Instead he heard faint music, dulcet beckoning tones. The world had entered another dimension, a seamless void. He wanted to be part of its emptiness, to swathe himself in the cascade of oblivion lifting him up. A perfect repose was drifting through him, a wave of darkness. He heard his own breathing as he was buoyed into a blood-red mist. He was floating, on a journey he had long waited to take, to a place far, far away. . . .
[Book Three]
[Chapter Seventeen]
"The hypersonic test flight must proceed as scheduled," Tanzan Mino said quietly. "Now that all the financial arrangements have been completed, the Coordinating Committee of the LDP has agreed to bring the treaty before the Diet next week. A delay is unthinkable."