"Well, I knew how much it would be worth to Malcolm and me once he was dead," Larissa replied, still detached. "The reinvention of the Internet? Yes, I could endure his touch a few more times if it meant that my brother and I would get those profits. Then, once the system was in place and working smoothly, Father was called in on the '07 economic summit. So we waited until after that. Right after. We went to Washington with him—even got to meet the President. On the jet back to Seattle it was just the three of us. He was very pleased with himself—why shouldn't he have been, he and his friends had just become the most powerful people in the country. He got drunk. Fell against the emergency hatch and released it during descent. Apparently." Letting out a brief sigh, Larissa held up one finger. "Fortunately, his loving children were smart enough to be wearing their seat belts and to keep their heads while the co-pilot got things back under control." She chuckled once and shook her head. "I never will forget the look on his face ..."

As she said all this, the objective detachment I'd been feeling began, without my quite realizing it, to deteriorate, overcome by a set of powerful instinctive reactions that were remnants of my own troubled past. And so, at that very crucial moment I simply put my hand to her face and said, "I suppose it made the assassinations easier—having already done, well, that." She shrugged. "I suppose it must have. But more than making it easier, I think it inspired me. It was quite a feeling—destroying people who so thoroughly deserved it. I got to have quite a taste for the experience. I remember that when I shot Rajiv Karamchand—"

"You shot him?" Karamchand, of course, was the Indian President who'd authorized the use of the first atomic weapons in the Kashmir war. Despite the best efforts of many intelligence agencies, his murder had remained a mystery. Larissa smiled and nodded. "And when I did it I felt just the way that I had watching Father fall out of that plane. A man who takes responsibility for the lives and well-being of others, and then betrays that trust so completely—I really can't think of anything quite as vile. Plus—" She turned over onto her stomach, her words coming faster. "—think about this: Why has there always been such a taboo against assassination? It's ludicrous. A political leader can order people to their death, or to kill others, while corporate executives can commit any kind of crime in the name of trade—yet they're all supposed to be considered untouchable. Why? Why should Karamchand have felt any safer when he went to bed at night than one of his own soldiers, or than the Pakistanis he slaughtered? Why should an executive who profits from slave labor be immune to the terror his workers feel? Assassination is the only way to make people like that start to think a little more seriously about what they do. As for making the rest of the world think a little harder about whose orders they decide to follow, and what they choose to believe—well, that's the whole point of what we're doing now, isn't it?"

I weighed the statement. "Yes, I can see that," I answered slowly. "Though I still don't get what part I'm supposed to play in it all."

Larissa threw her arms around my neck, again looking very pleased. "Keeping me happy—isn't that enough?" Seeing the continued look of inquiry in my face, she feigned a frown. "No? All right—the truth is Malcolm wanted a psychological profiler. We made up a list—and your background in history put you at the top of it. Then—" She moved in to kiss me. "—when I saw that picture of you ..."

As she pulled her lips away again I asked, "But why a profiler?" "Our various opponents," she breathed. "They've been responding in fairly inscrutable ways. The Americans, for instance, with that ridiculous raid on Afghanistan. They had suspicions that the Khaldun footage was doctored—we even gave them hints. But they went ahead anyway. Malcolm wants you to try to predict things like that. And, of course, perform the odd little job like the one in the tunnel back there—"

Larissa was cut off when the entire ship suddenly shook more violently than it had at any time since I'd been aboard. I spun toward the chemically tinted transparent panel in the hull near the bed and saw dim, eerie light outside: apparently, we'd once again climbed to a very high altitude. Against the mists of the stratosphere and the darkness of space beyond I could see dozens of glowing objects streaking toward us. Most of them were fairly small, I saw as they passed; but some, as they approached, grew to a considerable and disturbing size.

MORE >>

PAGE  1  |  2  |  3  |  4  |  5  |  6  |  7  |  8