He looked at the control. Flip the cover up, push the button, and it
was done. He could go eat or take a nap while it worked.
'I feel kind of, I don't know, awkward about this.'
'Why?'
'Well, the target being in the United States and all.'
'A pang of nationalism?'
'Maybe a little. I somehow didn't think it was going to go like
this.'
'That's always the way.
'No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy.' You know why
it's a deal breaker if you don't do this, don't you?'
'No. why?'
'Because if this works, and if as a result of it a few dozen people
die, then you haven't just killed some faceless people nobody cares
about a million miles away, you're a multiple-murderer in your own
country. And the city you were given as a target? It is in a state
with the death penalty, did you know that?'
Morrison felt the taste of bile threaten to rise in his throat.
'No. I didn't think about that.'
Ventura shrugged.
'You can only ride the needle once--that's how they do it there,
strapped to a gurney by lethal injection. What the Chinese want is
more assurance you won't change your mind and go running to the
authorities once the deal is done. Once this deal is complete, they
don't have to find you and kill you--all they have to do is tell the
feds who you are, sit back, and let them do the work. The Chinese
wouldn't want a trial, of course, having all this come out, but neither
do you. And once you get arrested? Well, then they'd know exactly
where to find you. It's very difficult to stop an assassin who is
willing to die to get the job done.'
Morrison felt the ugly truth of this flood into him like liquid oxygen,
chilling him to his core.
'I--I see.'
'Not quite yet, you don't. Before you push that button, let me lay out
a few more things you have to know.
'Once you get your money, Patrick Morrison has to disappear. You have
to vanish so completely that the best agents in China and maybe the
United States and half a dozen other countries can't find you, because
eventually they all might be looking. If you had visions of yourself
being on the board of directors of some university and benevolently
awarding grants to starving scientists or some such, you might as well
erase those ideas now. The only way you are going to survive to spend
that money is to become somebody completely different from the man you
are. You will have to sever all links to your past-and unless your
wife is willing to go along for the ride, which'll get a little bumpy
up front--that will include giving up contact with her, too. You'll be
a new man, in a new country, with a made-up background and history.
You won't even be able to read the same magazines you used to read, or
practice any of your hobbies, because you can bank on it, somebody will
