"The Council has ruled, the old man said as he led the others out."

Franco lingered behind briefly, staring daggers at the man in the bed, unable to further meet Valerie's sickened eyes. Finally he walked slowly away.

"Oh G.o.d," Valerie muttered as if in pain. "It was all for nothing. Nothing."

Xenos looked up from whispering to his father. "They might well go for the deal. Negotiation makes sense, and the Chinese appreciate sense."

"And if they don't? What then?"

Xenos held out his hand to her.

At first she thought it a conciliatory gesture, then she noticed the business card in it. She took it, seeing only a phone number printed on one side.

"What's this?"

"Ask for Herb," Avidol said with an odd expression. "Tell him-"He thought for a moment. "Tell him ... shalom."

Nine.

It had been a good day. Or at least no one had died, no new catastrophes had manifested themselves, and the Chinese had left him alone.

So Canvas relaxed as he walked down the quiet country road.

It was warm, walls of humidity greeted his every step, but a breeze off the water was cooling. The birds sang and the late summer foliage was spectacular. He closed off his mind from the myriad of decisions he had to make in the next few weeks and allowed himself the luxury of thinking of just one thing.

Xenos.

They'd never been friends-coworkers was barely accurate-but each man knew the other with a greater intimacy than they could a lover of twenty years. Because there had pa.s.sed between them a shared, well, life.

Both men were products of a system that both men had rejected. Both understood that whatever it was that had caused them to be singled out, to be given the intensive training and experience that had completed their metamorphosis, it was not the gift that their former masters believed it to be.

Both knew it only as a curse.

As he wandered the country road, absently wondering which road led down to the beach, he began-as he occasionally did-to examine the realities of his life. The facts of who he had become and whether or not he'd ever had any choice in the matter.

Perhaps they were born with birth defects-men like Xenos and himself-slight things, unnoticed at the moment of their nascency by the doctors who were more concerned with essentially meaningless issues like breathing, heart rates, and the numbers of fingers and toes. Maybe it was that simple. A thing out of anyone's control and impossible to correct or avoid.

The idea pleased him as he climbed over a guardrail to walk on the softer gra.s.s rather than the rock-hard road.

The concept had many attractive qualities to it. Giving G.o.d the blame/credit for everything they'd done or would do. For their coldness and pa.s.sion, their calculations and mayhem. It was the ultimate get-out-of-jail-free card, allowing a clear conscience and complete freedom of actions in all things.

No, the man reluctantly admitted. That was too pat, too easy.

And Canvas had seen enough of the world to know that none of it was easy.

Well, if they weren't acts of a vengeant and l.u.s.tful G.o.d, maybe the answer lay in Freudian terms. Dissections of personalities, foibles, habits. Idiosyncratic behaviors leading to an inevitable breakdown of the core personality resulting in antisocietal tendencies and a heightened awareness of the world around them and how best to manipulate it.

Not easy, but not right either.

He shrugged as he paused, for the first time scenting the salt water on the light breeze. He rolled his head to loosen his constantly (these days) tight neck. A squirrel froze halfway up a nearby tree trunk, regarding him calmly, cautiously. It evaluated his potential threat, examined possible solutions, then turned away and continued climbing into the upper branches.

He smiled openly, comfortably. Took in deep breaths of the nearby sea, rubbed his heavily tattooed forearms, then continued on.

Maybe it came down to just that, the squirrel and its life.

Certainly the rodents weren't superior to the other animals around them. No one claimed them as psychotic or particularly blessed by G.o.d. They were what they were.

Dynamically vulnerable and d.a.m.ned sure not going to make it easy for the world of predators around them!

He and Xenos had once talked about it, years ago when both believed that what they were doing for their respective governments had worth and importance. In a time when patriot pimps had so clouded their minds that they mistook doctrine for clarity.

"I think we're badly developed agoraphobics," Xenos had offered in a stilled voice from their place of concealment.

"We're outdoors, facing a rather hostile group of villains, in case you hadn't noticed, old son," Canvas replied as he swept his night-vision equipment over the vacant empty area they had to cross.

But Xenos had pressed the point. "That's what I mean by 'badly developed.' We're afraid of everything. Complete paranoids with enough training and experience to know just how dangerous and deadly a world we live in."

He'd smiled as he pointed out a pa.s.sing patrol. "But instead of hiding in a room by ourselves-jumping at every sound-we plan every aspect of our lives to a degree and finiteness that precludes disaster. And we're able to do it like a blind guy hears better. We just overcompensate our basic living skills."

"Bulls.h.i.t. I ain't afraid of nothing."

Xenos had just smiled at him, sighted down his rifle, calmly depressing the trigger, and watched the first man die.

"Sure," he said as he watched Canvas take his shot. "As long as you're in control."

Canvas remembered that smile.

In his adult years he had killed-personally-sixteen times; arranged or planned many more deaths than that. He'd carried out sophisticated intelligence operations for queen and country, and for money. Been a plaguelike cause of pain and misery for more people than he could possibly know.

He'd been well paid, decorated, lauded, and feted.

But in the end, in the times that he planned for his eventual retreat from a world that he both detested and feared, he'd done it for one reason and one reason only. To know the one thing that practically no other on the planet could possibly dream, yet all desperately yearned for.

That he was in control of his own life.

At least as long as the man with the smile wasn't in his life.

The feeling of ease and comfort vanished as he stepped onto the beach.

In the distance he could see them standing by the beached motor launch. Obscene spots on the drifting sands in their dark suits and $500 shoes. People of such inability that they were forced to humiliate themselves by turning to men like himself, like Xenos. Fools so haunted by their impotence that they could only come if other men did their f.u.c.king.

Only to f.u.c.k over their saviors in return.

As he drew closer, Canvas could see in their eyes a serious molesting coming his way.

"So?"

The German barely bowed his head. "I must protest this meeting. The plan called for individual briefings. The risks incurred by us all..."

"...being here is entirely your fault," Canvas finished for him. "If you'd all been willing to stick to the original timetable, none of this would be necessary, right?"

"The decision to expedite was made by higher authority," the German said stiffly.

Canvas laughed. "Then we mustn't disappoint them, must we?" He looked over the people whose pictures he'd long ago committed to memory. "What you all need to understand is that our losing six months of planning means we have to do everything on the fly, yes?"

The others seemed less nervous than the old German as they nodded.

"Now, I don't expect this to be a particularly clean or well-fit operation, as we're rushing it through; but if we remain calm, do our jobs, it'll be all right. But you can't hold anything back, right? Any problems, any imponderables, anything that gets in the way because of the shortened schedule, I have to know now. It's improvise, adapt, and overcome time, my lovelies. So come to Jesus and confess your sins."

Silence.

As he'd expected from the too worried individuals. They were being asked-in days-to sc.r.a.p years of preparation, of planning, and learn to juggle hand grenades, blindfolded in the dark during an earthquake.

"Come on, no fault being found. You all believe in this bulls.h.i.t or you wouldn't be here. Me, I'm in it for the money and don't really give a s.h.i.t, beyond my own personal safety, you see."

His voice dropped low and cautionary. "But since that personal safety depends on you true believers getting this stuff right, I'm going to help you as much as possible." The briefest, but noticeable, pause. "Or I'll find someone who can do your job in place of you."

Nervous shifting of weight between their feet, digging of toes into the brownish sand.

"Right, now who wants to start? Air?"

A man in his forties stepped forward. "For the most part, my end is unchanged," he said in a forced tone. "I'm confident we'll get the job done."

"I'm particularly concerned about forensics on the head and brain," Canvas said quietly. "We're not going there, but mistakes happen."

The man smiled nervously. "We've done three run throughs to date. If the hospital guys can't get it done, all we'll need is four minutes alone (per wound)-at the out-side-to debride and sanitize."

Canvas looked at a man in the center of the group. "Which brings us to..."

This man exhaled deeply. "The move-up screws us bad. We'd planned on using hospital politics and contributions to the board to get our people in position," but now, well, we've had to come up with alternatives. He handed a small piece of paper with three names on it to Canvas. "They're the ones scheduled to be on duty that day. They'll have to be stopped from coming to work."

Canvas never looked at the list as he pocketed it. "And then?"

"Our people will be the logical backups. And I'm the guy that makes the call."

He looked out at the water. "The problem is getting these guys out of the way without it looking like it really is. With the extra time, no problem. But right now, well, we're just not ready. His voice nervously trailed off."

"We'll start right away. Car accidents," mugging with injuries, maybe a family crisis. Canvas hesitated. "h.e.l.l, we still have a couple of weeks, right? But the tone of bitterness in his voice undid anything encouraging in the words."

The other man studied him, then finally nodded. "We need things to go right, but if they do, we'll be there and get it done."

"Fine." Canvas pointed at a woman in her twenties, seemingly out of place among the older people around her. "Go."

"The schedule remains unchanged as of this morning," she said confidently, with just a hint of arrogance or anger. "The Secret Service has approved the route and begun their advance work. Athlete will have breakfast with contributors and high rollers in the hotel ballroom at 0800; get his usual intelligence briefing right after, oh, say 0930 to 0950. He should enter the kill box around 1000 to 1015."

"That's b.l.o.o.d.y approximate."

The woman shrugged noncommittally. "Give me more time and I'll put him on the dime at the instant you want," she said angrily. "A year from now I would've been his appointments secretary, not just a personal aide! Then I would've shown you something."

Canvas wasn't sure if she was angrier about the coming improvised operation or the loss of her eventual promotion. He shook his head. "What about a vest?"

"Kevlar, level four. But he hates the d.a.m.n thing, thinks it ruins the line of his shirts when he's in shirtsleeves. Thinks he's got the body of a twenty-year-old and all that." She sighed deeply. "Which I've encouraged. Half the time, he doesn't wear the d.a.m.ned thing."

The German looked concerned. "Will the vest be a problem?"

Canvas shook his head. "Thanks to Teflon and her gracious charms, I doubt it." But he made a mental note to switch the large .444 Marlin jacketed rounds from Teflon to porcelain Dynex jacketing, to ensure maximum penetration.

"Media," he demanded.

"We'll be ready. A nonsourced wire-service story will break exactly seventeen minutes after zero that unidentified Asians were involved. We'll need help after that, though. Witnesses, on-camera interview ops, stuff like that."

"Yeah," Canvas said as he thought about the months of work that were being compressed into the next few days. "We'll see to it," he said with more confidence than he felt. Then a thought hit him. "What about your experts?"

The man looked uncomfortable. "None in position. Zip. Nada. If we had more time ..."

"How gullible are the ones you'd use normally?" He looked deeply concerned. If the disinformation aspect of the plan went awry, then the rest was a fragile house of cards in a gale wind.

"Our biggest break, actually. I've already sent our two best off on a.s.signment to Myanmar. The one I've got left tends to rehash the latest wire-service copy with his own flare. We'll feed him phony teletypes and faxes, spin him before he gets on the air."

"And if you can t?"

The man shrugged. "Then he doesn't get on the air and I'll do the commentary myself."

Canvas shook his head. "b.l.o.o.d.y fire drill," he mumbled. He looked up at a woman in her fifties who stood a little apart from the rest. "Remind me why I love you, Lissy."

The woman smiled supportively. "At ten minutes to zero we'll crash the local telephone system in a ten-block radius. Can't do anything about the police and sheriff's nets on this short notice, but... She barely suppressed a grin."

"But..."

"There's going to be a b.l.o.o.d.y great fire at an elementary school a mile and a half outside of the box." It'll start eighteen minutes before zero and they'll be pulling as many coppers off perimeter duty as they can when they hear about the little kiddies being barbecued and all. She paused as the others flinched or looked away. "How's that for love?"

Canvas laughed. "Marry me."

"And be unfaithful to my Mitch? Never. What kind of girl do you think I am?"

"Okay," the big man said after a moment of appreciation of that question, "this is our last meet, right? From now until zero we operate on a descending schedule that cannot be recalled. Any problems, anything unforeseen that might create a no-go situation, must be immediately reported to your chain link. And, people"-his voice lowered, eyes narrowed, and death became his face-"there will not be a no-go. Am I understood?"

They all nodded. Some reluctantly, others enthusiastically. But everyone understood the message.

The German joined Canvas as he walked away from the group.

"And your end of these ... arrangements? he asked."