The bartender came over and wiped at the already clean wood with a rag. “You want some pickled eggs? Free lunch.”
Jay shook his head. “You know those two down at the other end of the bar?”
The bartender didn’t look at the men, but smiled at Jay. He had a big, droopy moustache stained with tobacco, as were his teeth.
Jay caught the inference. He pulled a silver dollar from his pocket and put the cartwheel onto the bar. He slid it toward the bartender.
The man laid his hand over the coin and neatly palmed it.
“The big fellow is Bob Talley. He’s foreman at the Rocking K ranch south of town. I don’t know the little Chinaman.”
“Chinaman?”
“I’m guessing he’s got some Chinee in him. Slanty eyes. Not supposed to be in here, we don’t usually serve their kind, but he looks white enough nobody’s noticed, and his money is good.”
Jay nodded. Being part Thai, he had a little Asian epicanthic variation, too, but in this kind of scenario, he usually altered his appearance to be as bland white-bread as possible. He didn’t want to draw any attention.
“You’re a bounty hunter, ain’t ’cha?”
“What makes you say that?”
“Stranger comes in, you right behind him. You’re carrying something heavy hidden in your right-hand coat pocket, dollar to a dime it’s a pistol. I don’t see a badge on your shirt. Plus you give me a dollar, no lawman would do that. So, bounty hunter. What’d the little Chinaman do?”
“Shot a nosy bartender,” Jay said.
The man grinned and moved off. He had his dollar.
Jay took a deep breath. There were times when social engineering — bribing somebody — was the way to go. Not the most elegant method, maybe, but Jay was to the point with this hunt that he was past worrying about elegance. He wanted results and he didn’t care how he got them.
He sipped his beer. He had his quarry identified. Now, he’d wait to make his move—
The bartender stopped in front of Buckles and said something.
Buckles jammed his hand into his coat pocket, fast.
Jay knew immediately what had happened. That double-crossing bartender had given him up!
Jay dropped the beer and went for his own pocket. His move was smoother and faster — he came out with his revolver and thrust it toward Buckles, stopped with his arm extended, ready to shoot.
Buckles froze, his own weapon but halfway out of his pocket.
The other man was maybe fifteen, eighteen feet away — an easy target for somebody with Jay’s skill.
“Let it go and put your hands up,” Jay ordered. “We’ll talk, nobody has to get hurt—”
Buckles shook his head, grinned, and jerked his gun from his pocket. He tried to get it lined up on Jay—
Jay squeezed the.38 Lightning’s trigger, one, two, three—!
The bullets hit Buckles solidly in the chest. The man collapsed.
Jay frowned in disgust. Didn’t people know when they’d been beaten?
As he looked at the dying sub-routine, he had to shake his head. Apparently not.
Still shaking his head, Jay turned his revolver on the bartender and shot him, too. The rat.
But at least it wasn’t a total loss. He knew something now he hadn’t known before.
Thorn looked at Jay. “Chinese? Are you sure?”
Jay, in the flesh, nodded. “Yep. I did as much backwalking as I could after the scenario, and knowing better where to look, I found some signs. He might not
Thorn shook his head. This was… unexpected. And in less than an hour, the head of the Chinese version of Net Force was supposed to be walking into Thorn’s office. How weird was that?
“So, what does this give us?”
“It narrows down the search pattern. I can start the Super-Cray straining access to the net from China. That’s a lot of hits, and disguised, I’m sure, but it’s a place to start. I can also start checking around. If the attacker is Chinese, he sure didn’t get that good over there, so he must have studied in Europe or the States. I can run sieves on that.”
Thorn nodded. “Good. Go for it.”
“When is the CyberNation guy getting here?”
“This afternoon, right after lunch. And guess who else is scheduled for a meeting an hour from now — Chang.”
“Huh. There’s a coincidence.” Jay paused. “He could help. He’s got ways of getting in and out of Chinese systems we’d have to go the long way to reach. Maybe I could talk to him?”
“I’ll let you know when he arrives.”
“Thanks, Boss.”
“Keep at it, Jay. I have every confidence in you.”
Jay grinned. “I wish I did. This one is a bear.”
“And you’ll hang around for Seurat later?”
“Yeah. If I have to.”
After Jay was gone, Thorn decided he didn’t have enough time to eat and go work out before Chang arrived. Well, it wasn’t as if he didn’t have a boatload of e-paperwork that needed attention. He’d simply have lunch at his desk. The Republic had more than one computer problem nipping at its heels, and just because overall control of Net Force had been shifted didn’t mean any of those things had gone away…
11
Daytime in the Garden of Perpetual Bliss was usually sunny and seventy-two degrees. It would rain now and again, sometimes a mild drizzle, sometimes a windy storm — but never too windy — and always warm enough to sit in without getting cold. Enough rain fell to keep the lush foliage nourished and vibrant, all the myriad shades of green, all the colorful flowers. Bees buzzed, but never stung. Butterflies danced and flitted by.
Here, a group of Hindus wearing orange robes sat in full lotus, meditating, connecting with the essence of Vishnu, Brahma, and Shiva. Next to them, in the shade of a giant baobab tree, a dozen Buddhists kneeled in
A short way down the path, Christians and Jews and the followers of Mohammed sat in a large circle, exchanging prayers and smiles.
In the Garden, too, were those who thought every rock had a soul, that all wisdom came from their ancestors, that the Sun was the ruler of all it touched. And there were others who had no gods at all, but only their common humanity.
In the Garden, there was no dissent, no jealousy, no hatred. All who came here became one of the family of men, and no man’s hand was ever raised against another in anger. People dressed as they wished, or went nude.
Sometimes music drifted over the Garden, and such was its nature that the sounds each person heard on those occasions were suited to their personal tastes: Here, it was a raga, there a fugue, and past that, delta blues. People sang or danced or sat quietly and listened, and no one resented another’s manner of expression.
Fruit grew on the trees — apples, bananas, pears, coconuts, plums, oranges, every kind a hungry soul might desire was there somewhere. Vegetables, too, and nuts, and all manner of beasts — fish and fowl, even red meat — were available, if that was one’s wont.
One could come to the Garden to do, or just to be. It was all the same, and it was all wonderful.
When the dragon came, red-scaled and breathing fire, swooping down from the clear sky, most in the Garden
