Richards boomed: 'THAT MAY GO OVER IN SHAKER HEIGHTS, LITTLE MAN. IN THE STREETS YOU CAN BUY DYNACORE EVERY TWO BLOCKS IF YOU'VE GOT CASH ON THE LINE. AND I DID. GAMES FEDERATION MONEY. YOU HAVE EIGHTY-SIX MINUTES.'
'NO DEAL.'
'McCONE?'
'YES. '
'I'M SENDING THE WOMAN OUT NOW. SHE'S SEEN THE IRISH.' Amelia was looking at him with stunned horror. 'MEANWHILE, YOU BETTER GET IT IN GEAR. EIGHTY-FIVE MINUTES. I'M NOT BLUFFING, ASSHOLE. ONE BULLET AND WE'RE ALL GOING TO THE MOON.'
'No,' she whispered. Her face was an unbelieving rictus. 'You can't believe I'm going to lie for you.'
'If you don't, I'm dead. I'm shot and broken and hardly conscious enough to know what I'm saying, but I know this is the best way, one way or the other. Now listen: Dynacore is white and solid, slightly greasy to the touch. It-'
'No, no! No! ' She clapped her hands over her ears.
'It looks like a bar of Ivory soap. Very dense, though. Now I'm going to describe the imploder ring. It looks-'
She began to weep. 'I can't, don't you
'Yeah, and they might find out you lied,' he added dryly. 'Except they won't. Because if you back me, they'll cave in. I'll be off like a bigass bird.'
'RICHARDS! SEND THE WOMAN OUT!'
'The imploder ring is gold,' he continued. 'About two inches in diameter. It looks like a keyring with no keys in it. Attached to it is a slim rod like a mechanical pencil with a G-A trigger device attached to it. The trigger device looks like the eraser on the pencil.'
She was rocking back and forth, moaning a little. She had a cheek in either hand and was twisting her flesh as if it were dough.
'I told them I had pulled out to half-cock. That means you would be able to see a single small notch just above the surface of the Irish. Got it?'
No answer; she wept and moaned and rocked.
'Sure you do,' he said softly. 'You're a bright girl, aren't you?'
'I'm not going to lie,' she said.
'If they ask you anything else, you don't know from Rooty-Toot. You didn't see. You were too scared. Except for one thing: I've been holding the ring ever since that first roadblock. You didn't know what it was, but I had it in my hand. '
'Better kill me now.'
'Go on,' he said. 'Get out.'
She stared at him convulsively, her mouth working, her eyes dark holes. The pretty, self-assured woman with the wraparound shades was all gone. Richards wondered if that woman would ever reappear. He did not think so. Not wholly.
'Go,' he said. 'Go. Go.'
She lunged against the door and half sprang, half fell out. She was on her feet instantly and running. Her hair streamed out behind her and she seemed very beautiful, almost goddesslike, and she ran into the lukewarm starburst of a million flashbulbs.
Carbines flashed up, ready, and were lowered as the crowd ate her. Richards risked cocking an eyebrow over the driver's side window but could see nothing.
He slouched back down, glanced at his watch, and waited for dissolution.
Minus 033 and COUNTING
The red second hand on his watch made two circles. Another two. Another two. 'RICHARDS!'
He raised the bullhorn to his lips. 'SEVENTY-NINE MINUTES, McCONE.'
Play it right up to the end. The
After a long grudging, eternal pause: 'WE NEED MORE TIME. AT LEAST THREE HOURS. THERE ISN'T AN L/G-A OR A DELTA ON THIS FIELD. ONE WILL HAVE TO BE FLOWN IN.'
She had done it. O, amazing grace. The woman had looked into the abyss and then walked out across it. No net. No way back. Amazing.
Of course they didn't believe her. It was their business not to believe anyone about anything. Right now they would be hustling her to a private room in one of the terminals, half a dozen of McCone's picked interrogators waiting. And when they got her there, the litany would begin.
