And now, here it was. The moment that had been festering inside him for over two years. His brother blinking at him, like a deer staring into the headlights.

He drew in breath. He really was going to do this.

You want to know what Megan did when she found out?" Another hard breath. She fucked me, Jeff.

We went to some motel up near Novato, and she fucked me raw. All afternoon and night. Best sex I ever had."

And now Jeff came flailing up out of the sofa, roaring, fists swinging. Norton blocked, twisted, and punched his brother in the side of the face. The first time he' d used his enforcement training in better than a year. It felt creakily unaccustomed, but it felt unexpectedly good as well. The blow connected solidly, put Jeff down, crawling half on the sofa, half on the floor. Norton grabbed him by the back of the collar, balled fist raised again.

And stopped.

No. You' re not Carl Marsalis.

Fist slowly unflexing, dropping away. He let go of the collar. Overpowering urge to shake himself, like a drenched dog. Instead he stepped away, leaned against the edge of his brother' s desk.

This is going to be hard on her," he said, still breathing unevenly. Megan and the kids. But don' t worry.

When they send you up to Quentin Two for what you' ve done here, I' l make sure she' s okay. I' l take care of her."

A low, grinding howl came up out of his brother' s throat as he propped himself up on the sofa, as if he' d swallowed broken glass. Norton felt a peculiarly comfortable calm settling into place on his shoulders. His breathing eased.

We' re good together, Jeff. She laughs when she' s around me. We' ll work something out."

Fuck you!" Spat out like blood.

There was a timid tap at the door. Norton glanced up, surprised. Yeah?"

The door opened and the stout Asian woman peered around the edge. Mr. Norton, are you... ?"

She stared, eyes wide.

It' s okay," said Norton hurriedly. I' m Jeff' s brother, Tom. Jeff' s been under a lot of strain recently. I' m sure you' l have noticed. It' s, uh, it' s gotten pretty bad."

I, uhm- "

He real y needs to be alone right now, just with family, you know. We' ve made the calls. If you could- "

Yes, of course, uhm... " She looked across at Jeff where he now sat on the floor with his back to the sofa. Blood-flecked tissue in his nose, face smeared with tears and rage, uncapped bottle on the table in front of him. Mr. Norton, I' m so sorry, if there' s anything at all I can do... "

Jeff Norton stared back at her.

It' s okay, Lisa," he said dully. Everything' s going to be fine. Could you show my brother where we keep our medical records from the Carmel clinic."

Yes, of course." Imbued with a solid purpose, Lisa seemed to grow visibly stronger again. You' re quite sure that- "

Jeff dragged up the husk of a smile. Quite sure, Lisa."

He turned to look at his brother, and there was an odd note of triumph suddenly in his voice. Go ahead, little brother. You want to see something I kept back from your thirteen friend?"

Lisa vacillated in the doorway. Norton stared at Jeff.

This is about Onbekend?"

Just go look, Tom." He saw Norton' s hesitation and chuckled. What am I going to do, make a dash for the airport while you' re gone? Seriously, go look. This is something I saved just for you. You' re going to love it."

It' s, uh." Lisa gestured along the corrior. This way."

Jeff, if you knew something else about Onbekend, you should have- "

Just go fucking look, will you!"

So he went, left the door ajar and followed Lisa out into the corridor. In the doorway, he paused and turned, looked hard at his brother, pointed at him.

You stay right there."

Jeff snorted, rolled his eyes, and reached for the bottle of Martell.

Down the angled corridor, tracking Lisa' s stolid progress, floating behind the eyes with all that he was still trying to assimilate. He wondered vaguely if Marsalis hadn' t gone out into the street as much to clear his head as to keep the call to RimSec clean.

They were almost at the door marked carmel street clinic when the single shot slammed behind them, so flat and undramatic that at first he mistook it for the sound of the door to Jeff' s office, the exit he hadn' t bothered to close.

CHAPTER 51.

T hey had Alvaro Ortiz in a monitored convalescence suite on the newly nanobuilt upper levels at the Weill Cornell Medical Center. He was tagged with microdoc subdermals that would broadcast a scream to the hospital system if his life signs dipped in any way, the receptionist explained with an enthusiastic smile, and he had panic buttons in the bathroom, next to his bed, and on his wheelchair. A full crash team and a dedicated emergency room doctor were retained at all times on idle, specifically for the patients on these levels. Norton thanked her, and they went upstairs. A COLIN Security detachment was on duty outside the suite, two hard-faced men and a woman who met them out of the elevator with professional tension that evaporated when they recognized Norton. Carl let them pat him down anyway, not sure if it was his thirteen status or just procedure that made them do it. The more relaxed they were, the better.

Norton told the squad leader not to bother seeing them in, they' d be fine. Mr. Ortiz knew they were coming.

The doors to the suite hummed smoothly back and they walked through. Ortiz was in a wheelchair in the living room, parked by the floor-to-ceiling windows. He wore loose gray silk pajamas, held a book apparently forgotten in his hands, was lost instead in contemplation of the view out across the cubist thickets of the city to the park. He looked thin and breakable in the chair, the tanned face hollowed out to a worn gray, the grizzled hair gone to white in places. He didn' t appear to have heard the door open, and he didn' t turn as they stepped into view from the entryway hal . Carl wondered if he already knew why they' d come.

Ortiz," Norton said harshly, moving a step ahead.

Ortiz prodded at the chair' s arm controls, and it coasted silently around on the spot to face them. He smiled, a little forcedly.

Tom Norton," he said, as if it were a philosophical question that had been troubling him. I' m so very sorry to hear about your brother, Tom. I' ve been meaning to cal you. And Carl Marsalis, of course. I still haven' t had the chance to thank you for saving my life."

Don' t thank me yet."

Ah." Something happened to the planes of the ravaged face. Well, I didn' t imagine that this was a social cal ."

Jeff talked." Norton was trembling with the force of what he' d carried inside him across the continent.

Scorpion Response. Wyoming. The whole thing. So don' t you tel me you' re sorry, you piece of shit. You did this, all of it. You' re the reason Jeff is dead."

Am I?" Ortiz didn' t seem to be disputing it. He placed his hands palm-to-palm in his lap, pressed them together, maybe to hold down his fear. And so you' ve brought your avenging angel with you. Well, that is fitting, I suppose, but I should warn you this chair has- "

We know," Carl said bleakly. And I' m not here for Norton' s benefit. I came for Sevgi Ertekin."

Ertekin?" A frown crossed Ortiz' s face, then cleared. Oh yes, the officer you stayed with in Harlem when we had you released. Yes, she died, too, didn' t she. A few days ago. I' m afraid I' ve not been keeping up very closely with- "

She didn' t die." Carl held down the fury with distant, trained reflex. His voice was quiet and cold, like the faint bite of winter in the New York air outside. Sevgi Ertekin was kil ed. By your avenging angel, Ortiz.

By Onbekend. Merrin. Whatever you call him. She died saving my life."

I am... very sorry about that as wel ."

That' s not good enough."

For you? No, I don' t imagine it would be. I assume there was some." Ortiz frowned. Some connection between you and this Ertekin."

Carl said nothing. The words would take him nowhere.

Yes, there must have been. You people care about so little in the end, need so little, of the material world and of other people. But when you do choose to own something or someone, when you consider that something or someone to be yours... "

Yes, then," said Carl. Nothing else matters."

He met the COLIN director' s eyes, saw the way they flinched away.

I' m afraid," said Ortiz shakily, that events have run rather out of control in my... my absence from the bridge, as it were. Your involvement, Onbekend, other changing factors. Had I not been removed so unexpectedly from managing the operation, perhaps things would not have become so tangled. I truly regret that, you must believe me."

You stil would have murdered over twenty men and women," said Norton violently. Just to save your political fucking neck."

Ortiz shook his head. No, Tom, that isn' t- "

Don' t fucking use my name like we' re friends, you piece of shit!"

Carl put a hand on Norton' s arm. Keep it down, Tom. We don' t want your security breaking the door down on us."

The COLIN exec jerked away from him, looked at him as if he were contagious. In front of them, Ortiz was talking again.

- was not for me, personally. You must understand that. I' m a wealthy man, and I have access to even greater wealth through other channels if I need it. I could have afforded to pay off your brother and his accomplice- "

Norton stared. You knew? You knew he was part of it?"

I suspected." Ortiz coughed a little, hunched over in the chair. He cleared his throat. His story seemed feeble, I thought it was likely he was involved, but... we were once close associates, Tom. Friends, even.

You must know I promoted you on his request, just the way I promoted him to Scorpion Response twenty years ago."

Norton' s voice came through his teeth. Am I supposed to be fucking grateful to you now?"

No, of course not. That' s not what I' m saying. Listen to me, please. I suspected Jeff, I didn' t know for sure. But I did know that if I unleashed Onbekend on the others, whoever they were, Jeff would fold. If he had been involved, I knew he' d give me no more trouble. Even in the old days, even with Scorpion Response, he was a logistical manager, a facilitator. Not an operative, not a killer. Jeff never had the stomach for those things."

Norton grinned savagely down at him. That' s al you know. My brother sent those skaters to kil you. My brother got me to hire Marsalis out of South Florida State to crank up the pressure on you and Onbekend.

He was playing you just like you played him."

Is that so?" An attempted smile wavered on the COLIN director' s face for a moment. Ironic, then, that he provided both the agents of my death and the means to foil them. Ironic, too, that you, Mr. Marsalis, should both save my life and then bring everything tumbling down around me. But then, that has always been the double-edged blade that your kind offered us, from the very beginning. Variant thirteen, the avatars of purified violence, our saviors and our nemeses."

Carl listened to the lilt of imagery in Ortiz' s voice and thought abruptly of Manco Bambaren' s mannered speeches on pistacos and human history. He wondered idly what genes the two men might share.

Where is Onbekend?" he asked bluntly.

I' m afraid I don' t know." Maybe Carl twitched forward, because Ortiz' s voice tightened a little with anxiety. Real y, I don' t. Believe me, if I knew- "

Jeff Norton said he' d gone back to the altiplano. Back to Bambaren. That' s where you would have contacted him in the beginning to set this up, right?"

Yes, but through Bambaren' s organization. In the end, I could only leave messages. It was he who came to me, here in New York one night, like a ghost through the security around my home." Ortiz stared away through the window and shivered a little. Like something I had summoned up. I should have known then, all those lessons our myths and legends scream at us, time and again. Never summon up what you cannot control."

You must have had direct contact with him after that," Carl said pragmatically. You set him on me in San Francisco, after the Bulgakov' s Cat arrests."

Ortiz tried another smile. It guttered and died. Believe me, Mr. Marsalis, I tried harder than you' l ever know to prevent that. I am not an ungrateful man, and you had saved my life. But once decided, Onbekend is a force of nature. You had already threatened the object of his affections in Arequipa; he would not take less than your death. I tried to move you out of range, I had UNGLA attempt to recall you, but it seems you are in your way no less stubborn than any other of your kind. You would not shift. And Onbekend was closing on you too fast for me to do anything else."

The shock sparked in him. You had di Palma call me?"

Yes, Mr. Marsalis." Ortiz sighed. And not only then. From the very beginning, Gianfranco di Palma had instructions to remove you from the proceedings as rapidly as possible. We had simply not expected you to be so tenacious in a fight that was not your own."

Carl remembered the UNGLA clinic in Istanbul. Mehmet Tuzcu and his diplomatic attempts at extraction.

His own refusal to shift, the weak fistful of reasons he threw out, like sand in his own eyes. But it had always been Sevgi Ertekin, he knew, even then.

Greta Jurgens is Onbekend' s?" he asked distractedly.

So it would appear. A curious match, is it not? But then they do at least have in common that they are both objects for the hormonal hatred the rest of humanity seems constantly to need a target for."

Norton was dealing with something else, staring at Ortiz. You' re pulling favors with UNGLA already?

You' ve got your hooks in that far?"

Tom, I have a secure nomination for secretary general. There will be no dispute, it' s decided at al the levels that matter. I will hold the post by this time next year, if you let me live." The pressed palms raised, almost like prayer. Don' t you understand, either of you, that this is what I have been trying to safeguard? You think this was about me personally? It was not, please believe me. I have spent the last six years of my life trying to bend the Colony Initiative closer to a rapprochement with the UN. To reach agreements on Martian law and cooperative governance. To leash corporate greed and harness it to a European social model. To break down the barriers between us and the Chinese instead of building walls and fences. I' ve done all of that in the hope that we don' t have to take our insular nation-state insanities to the first new world we' ve reached and build the same stupid hate-filled structure from the ground up all over again."

Ortiz' s face was flushed and animated, passion briefly imitating health while it fil ed him. Carl watched the COLIN director as if he were something behind glass in an insect vivarium. See the humans. Watch the patriarchal male justify his acts to his fellows and to himself.

One more year," said Ortiz urgently. That' s all I need, and I can continue that work from the other side of the fence. I can restructure the idiot posturing in the General Assembly, force reforms, make promises, all built on the work I' ve already done here with COLIN. That' s what was under threat from this stupid petty blackmail out of the past- not some quick cash that I could have filtered through a COLIN account for less than the cost of a single nanorack elevator. That' s not why I did this. I did it for the future, a hope for the future. Isn' t that worth the sacrifice? It was a handful of used-up, counterfeit lives, tired, superannuated men and women of violence hiding from their own pasts, set in the balance against the hope of a better future for al of us."

Carl thought briefly of Toni Montes, imagined her fighting Onbekend with the decayed vestiges of her combat skill, then letting go and dying to keep the thirteen away from her husband and children. He wondered if she' d thought of smoking ruins in Wyoming as she stood there waiting for the bul et, or only the children she would never see walk through the door again.

He wondered what he' d have to picture when the time came for him.

Elena Aguirre, whispering behind him.

The quiet, fil ing him up...