The motorcade was coming into view, at the far end of one street, just as he decided at last to act. He spun on one heel, doubling back towards — but not to — his favorite tobacconist’s shop. He dashed with some difficulty through an alleyway, sure he was being…

Men had named him Kraken, shown him a fearful deference to his current form, since the Vikings were young in the world. It ought to have satisfied him; it would have satisfied his associates, if they had shared his abilities and known what to do with them, but it left…

“I remembered Atlanta last night,” Josie exclaimed. Her revelation pleased her almost as much as having done it did. “So that’s back now. I’ll have to look at that map, in the kitchen drawer — which one was it? To remember the main roads, there and back. We’ve got to…

No self-respecting gun thug would want to be caught dead inside of Ladies’ Lingerie or Children’s Toys, on their boss’s time. Being caught dead was one topic on which they could speak with great authority! It forced a laugh out of him, picturing some torpedo even trying to explain to…

Rich: I never grasped why gold was such a huge deal, until we moved to our Wisconsin home. High school would be challenge enough, for me, without adding the startling new element, no pun intended, that I was to discover at the end of my first semester. One of my…

The call would upend her whole day of work. She asked, “Jack, if you can spare a minute?” He blinked at Amika in benign confusion. He was brown of eye and hair, wiry but strong. They knew each other, she believed, owing to their many months of collaboration. His company…

“What do you hear?” the captain would ask me, each time — and he looked, each time, like my answer disappointed him, before I had given it out. He wasn’t second-guessing my technical abilities; there would have been no berth, aboard his vessel, for me to fill, if that had…

The sun could be useful, Żukówski knew, but at that moment, its radiance was at its minimum. Snow should melt under a sunny sky — on Earth. This far beyond the atmospheric shell of that planet, snow boiled, then refroze, as it peeled away into vacuum. …

Lagunov was in a dingy Edinburgh ballroom, on the dance floor, when he received the Kill order from his superiors. “Jive Talking”, by the Bee Gees, throbbed from the loudspeakers. The other dancers, including his shapely brunette partner, took no notice of his move to the bar to take the…