The mesh surged a little in the pit of his stomach, maybe aftermath of the firefight, maybe something else.

He thought of Sevgi' s eyes closing in the hospital. He stared at Jurgens like she was a problem he had to solve.

Only live with what you' ve done, and try in the future to do only what you' re happy to live with. That' s the whole game, soak, that' s all there is.

He reached out left-handed. Spread the foam netting a little thicker over the hibernoid' s body, pulled it up where one pale shoulder was exposed.

Then he went rapidly back to the door and killed the bright white LCLS, because something was happening to his vision that felt like blindness. He stood a moment in the warm orange gloom, looked twitchily around as if someone were there next to him, then slipped quietly out and closed the door behind him.

He moved along the gallery, checked doors until he found a darkened, windowless chamber with the fragrant hygiene reek of a woman' s bathroom. He stepped inside, touched the switch panel; more bright white light exploded across the pastel-tiled space. His own face mugged him from a big circular mirror in one wall- sweat-streaked whitener melting and smudging, the black coming up underneath, eyes ringed with the stuff like dark water at the bottom of a pair of pale psychedelic wells. Fuck, no wonder the guys at the bridge freaked. He supposed he owed Carmen Ren for the inspiration.

Wherever she was right now.

He wondered briefly if Ren would make it, if she' d stay ahead of the cudlips and the Agency the way she had before. He wondered if the child growing inside her would make it out into the world safely, and what would happen then. What Ren would have to do to protect it after that.

He remembered the level gaze, the way she' d backed him off with nothing more than a look and the way she stood, the reek of survivability that came off her as she faced him by the tower. Not a bad set of cards to play with. He thought she might be in with a better chance than most of her male counterparts.

Mostly, he was just glad he wouldn' t be the one sent to bring her down.

In a drawer beside the basin, he found capsules he recognized- codeine married to a tweaked caffeine delivery kick. They' d do for his ribs. He ran water from infrared taps into the broad, shallow scoop of marble in front of the mirror, soaped up, and started washing the white shit off his face. It took awhile.

When he' d gotten the worst off, he stuck his head under the tap and ran the water on his scalp and the back of his neck. He took one of Greta Jurgens' s pastel towels off the rail beside the basin and scrubbed himself dry with it, stared into the mirror again and didn' t scare himself so much this time.

Now let' s see if you can scare Onbekend.

He crunched up the codeine in his mouth, dry-swallowed a couple of times, tongued the clogged residue off his teeth, and rinsed it down with a swallow of water from the tap. He looked at himself once more in the mirror, as if his reflection might have some useful advice for him, then shrugged and extinguished the light.

He went downstairs to wait.

" You don' t have to do this," Norton told him.

Carl walked past him around the table, eyeing up the angles. Yeah, I do."

It isn' t going to bring her back."

He settled to a long, narrow shot down the side cushion. I think we' ve already had this argument."

For Christ' s sake, I' m not arguing with you, Marsalis. I' m trying to make you see sense, maybe stop you throwing your life away down there. Look, Saturday is Sevgi' s funeral. I can get you cleared through Union immigration, and keep the police off your back for the time it' d take. Why don' t you come?"

Because, as far as I can see, that won' t bring her back, either."

Norton sighed. This isn' t what she would have wanted, Marsalis."

Norton, you don' t have the faintest fucking idea what Sevgi would have wanted." He rolled the shot, shaved the angle too fine, and watched it knock the object ball into the cushion and away from the pocket. And neither do I."

Then why are you going down there?"

Because someone once told me the key to living with what you' ve done is to only do those things you'

re happy to live with. And I can' t live with Sevgi dead and Onbekend stil walking around."

Carl braced his arms wide on the edge of the table and nodded at the messed-up tangle of balls on the table.

Your shot," he said. See what you can make of that."

CHAPTER 54.

T he painkillers came on fast, left him with slight nausea and then a vague sense of well-being he could probably have done without. He prowled the lodge' s downstairs space, measuring angles of fire and thinking halfheartedly about defensibility. He toyed with the piled-up weaponry on the breakfast bar, couldn' t work up much interest there, either. Something was in the way.

He found a place where he could sit and look along the canyon to the jumbled rise of mountains it lay among. Sunlight knifed down over the ridges, turned the air luminous and slightly unreal. As if it was what she' d been waiting for all along, Sevgi Ertekin stepped into his thoughts.

It was the same feeling, the way he' d felt her as he watched the light die away over the hil s of Marin County, and again as he left the canyons of Manhattan by way of the Queensboro Bridge. He sat and let the sensation rinse through him, and with it he felt a creeping sense of comprehension, conscious thought catching up with the undefined the way he' d caught up with Gray. Maybe it was the codeine, tripping a synaptic switch somewhere, letting the understanding through. Sevgi was gone, his brain was wired to process that much successfully. But not that she was dead. For the ancient Central African ancestor genes, that one just wouldn' t compute. People don' t just cease to exist, they don' t just vanish into thin fucking air. When people are gone, some deeply programmed part of his consciousness was insisting, it'

s because they' re somewhere else, right? So Sevgi' s gone. Fine. So where' s she gone, let' s find that out, because then we can fucking go there and find her, be with her, and finally get rid of this fucking ache.

So.

Those hills dying into darkness on the other side of the bay- think she might be over there? Or in among all that glass and steel over there on the other side of the bridge, maybe? Or, okay, up this fucking canyon maybe, and over the other side of those mountains there. Maybe she' s there. Up past the luminous unreal light, up in the thin air, waiting there for you.

For the first time in his life, he saw why the cudlips might find it hard not to believe in an afterlife, in some other place you go when you' re gone from here.

And then, as he beat his own wiring, as the comprehension settled in, the feeling it had come to explain melted away, and left him nothing in its place but the raw pain in his chest and the stinging salve of the hate.

And out of thin air, as if in answer, the helicopters came.

There were two of them, nondescript commercial machines, bumping down through the brilliant canyon air with the ungainly caution of crane flies. They quartered noisily back and forth, dipped about for a while, angled rotor blur shimmering in the sun, and then they held position over the river opposite the lodge.

Carl watched bleakly from the shattered picture window. Enough carrying capacity in the two aircraft for a dozen men at least. He stayed back out of view, let the scattered corpses on the ground around the lodge door paint the picture he wanted. The helicopters dithered and dipped. Finally, he picked up one of the Steyr assault rifles and loosed a quick burst out the window in their general direction. The response was immediate- both machines reared up and fled downriver, presumably in search of a safe place to land.

The path ran on that way, he knew, grooving back down toward the water, building another rock wall on its landward side. They' d be able to come back that way, upriver, and stay hidden right to the edge of the cleared ground outside the lodge, mirror-imaging the approach he' d made a couple of hours ago from the other side. He frowned a little, cuddled the folding frame stock of the Steyr into his shoulder, squinted along the sight, and panned experimentally across the cleared ground. He was pretty sure he could knock down anyone coming for the house before they' d made a couple of meters in the open. They might try a rush assault but it wasn' t likely- they didn' t know how many were in the house, or what they might have done with Greta Jurgens, whether she was alive or dead, safe in her womb or dragged downstairs ready to be held up ragdoll-limp as a shield.

And the lodge was a tough nut to crack. Ferrer had been clear about that much. Bitch got a fucking fortress there, man. Right into the fucking rock, no way you can come down from above, smooth sides so you can' t sneak up. I mean. He sat back, hands in the pockets of his clean new chinos, smirking and confident now he' d done his deal. Who the fuck she expecting, man, the fucking army? And all so she can fucking sleep? Man, I don' t know what hold that bitch got on Manco' s balls, but it' s gotta be something pretty fucking major, get him doing all this. Gotta give the mother of all blow jobs or something.

Like Stefan Nevant before him, Suerte saw the results and jumped to the obvious wrong conclusion.

Onbekend stayed in the shadows. If you didn' t know he was there already, you looked for other, more visible explanations.

Like unhuman monsters, home from Mars.

It was the dynamic Ortiz had built his whole cover-up effort around. A monster stalks us! All hands to the palisades and the torches! Don' t ask, don' t ever ask who' s really making all this happen.

A head poked up from down near the river. Carl let him have a good look around, then fired off another burst. Stone chips and dust leapt in the air; the head jerked back down.

Just so they' re clear on the situation.

Marsalis?"

Manco Bambaren' s voice. Carl got his back to the side of the window space, stayed in the shadows, and edged an eye around. Steep early-afternoon sunlight flooded down into the canyon. If you crouched and peered upward, you could just see the rich angled fall of it past the rim, and a restful blue gloom beneath where the higher parts of the valley wall were cast in shadow. It was very quiet now that the helicopters were gone- the whirring scrape of crickets, and the buzzing of flies on the bodies outside.

Black man, is that you?"

Good guess," he shouted back, dumping Bambaren' s Spanish for Quechua. What do you want?"

Brief hesitation. Carl wondered if Onbekend maybe couldn' t follow a conversation in Quechua- there was no guarantee he' d have learned it in his time living hidden up on the altiplano. He' d get by easily enough with Spanish and English. And as Bambaren' s pet pistaco, he' d have no need to integrate with the locals. Standard thirteen isolation would work like a dream.

Sure enough, Bambaren stayed in Spanish. It' s really about what you want, Marsalis. Can we talk?"

Sure. Come on in."

You guarantee not to shoot me before you' ve heard what I have to say?"

Carl grinned. I don' t know, you going to take the word of a twist on that?"

Yes. I will."

Then come on across. No weapons, no body armor, hands where I can see them." Carl paused. Oh yeah, and bring your brother with you."

Long, long silence. The crickets scraped in the heated air outside.

What' s the matter, Manco? You not been watching the feeds? It' s all burned down now, didn' t you know? Ortiz is gone, COLIN are cleaning house. We know al about Onbekend. So let' s see both of you."

It took a couple of minutes, but then the two figures emerged from the cover down by the path and walked steadily up toward the lodge, hands clasped over their heads. Carl watched them over the Steyr' s sight.

Onbekend was holding one arm lopsided, as if it hurt to lift. Carl remembered Sevgi in the Bayview bar- Hit him a couple of times, but not enough to put him down. Thirteens, huh.

Yeah, we' re tough motherfuckers.

He lined up on Onbekend' s face, flexed his trigger finger a couple of times, took up the tension. Then let it go, put the gun aside impatiently. He picked up a handgun, another Glock, from the pile on the floor, checked the load, and snapped the slide. As Bambaren and Onbekend reached the doorway, he stepped back, mindful of sniping angles through the picture window, and wagged the pistol at them.

Come on in."

Onbekend stared at him, spat out English. Where is she, Marsalis?"

Not so hasty. Back there to the table in the alcove, both of you. Hands on your head at al times. I' m not going to mess about patting you down, so if either of you do move a hand anywhere near your body without my permission, I' ll just make the assumption and kil you. Got that?"

Bambaren pivoted back and forth slightly, eyes sweeping the open-plan space inside the lodge.

Understanding widened his eyes.

You came here alone?"

Go to the table. Sit down in the two chairs I' ve pul ed out. Keep your hands on your heads until you' re seated, and then put them on the table in front of you. No sudden moves. Sudden movement will get you dead."

He tugged the door closed, pulled it until the latch whined over into lock.

Marsalis, I have fifteen men out there." Bambaren' s voice was low and conversational as he walked to the table. He' d shifted into English as wel . You' re sealed in. Let' s talk about this."

We' re going to talk about it. But you' re going to be sitting down when we do. Hands where I can see them, and then flat on the table in front of you."

They seated themselves, awkward with the need to keep their hands lifted. Bambaren took the head of the table, Onbekend the seat adjacent. This far back in the open-plan space, the lodge made inroads into the cliff face and it was cool and dim, so the two men looked like part of some arcane spiritualist gathering, stiff-backed in the chairs, palms down on the wood, expressions taut. Carl pulled out a chair opposite Onbekend and sat in it, well back from the edge of the table. He floated the Glock on his knee.

And now what?" the other thirteen asked evenly.

Now we talk about why I shouldn' t kil you both. Any ideas?"

Are you so anxious to die, black man?" Bambaren asked.

Carl gave him a faint smile. Well, fifteen-to-one is long odds, it' s true. But then again, eight-to-one didn'

t look good, either, and there they all are, out there for the flies."

Have you learned nothing?" Onbekend was looking at him with the same contempt he' d given off in the Bayview bar. Are you still nothing better than a soldier for the cudlips?"

Bambaren stiffened. Carl put a small smile together.

Want to be careful who you use that word around, brother. It' s not Manco here' s fault he didn' t get an upgraded limbic system and a beefed-up area thirteen out of Isabela' s raw materials."

Onbekend barely flickered a glance at Bambaren. I' m not talking about Manco, and he knows it. I' m talking about the men at the UN you sold your soul to."

I' m not here for them."

Onbekend' s eyes narrowed. Then why did you come?"

Because you kil ed a friend of mine."

If you have friends, hired man, then I don' t know them. Who have I killed?"

You shot a woman called Sevgi Ertekin, a police officer, when she chased you out into the street in Bayview. You shot her with a Haag pistol, and she died."

Were you fucking her?"

Yeah, we were fucking each other. Rather like you and Jurgens."

Onbekend' s face whitened as he saw the corollary. He cleared his throat.

It was a firefight," he said quietly. Not personal. You would have done the same in my place."

Carl thought of Garrod Horkan camp and Gaby. The Haag shells knocking her down.

That' s not the issue."