“Boo!”
“Tell them we are not the least bit interested,” he’d told his lawyers. “Make it very clear to them that this is not a negotiating ploy, not an opening gambit. This is the end-game. Make sure that they know they have already lost.”
That would piss them off, but — so what? They didn’t have the cards, and if somebody called your bluff, you lost the pot.
The private scrambled line lit, and Cox picked it up. “Hello?”
“My house has been blown up,” Eduard said.
“That’s terrible.” A beat: “We shouldn’t speak of such things, even on a secure line.”
“Who would do such a thing?”
“Why ask me? I don’t know. An old enemy?”
“My old enemies are no longer among the living.”
“It is just a house, my friend. We’ll get you a new one.”
There was silence. Then, “Yes, you are right. Forgive me for bothering you with this.”
Somebody had destroyed Eduard’s house? Who? Why? Perhaps it had been an accident?
He looked at the timer. Only a minute left. A house was nothing. He could buy Eduard fifty houses, he could sleep in a different one each week for a year, if he wanted.
Cox hit the stop button on the timer, letting his feet slow to a stop. Someone had blown up Eduard’s house? Who? Why? And more importantly, how?
Cox hadn’t done it himself. He knew that. And he knew that Net Force would never be able to do such a thing. Which meant someone else knew about Eduard, and that just shouldn’t be possible.
“This is serious,” he said. “Go to ground. Give me time to look into this. Then we’ll talk.”
“Yes,” Eduard said, and disconnected.
Cox resumed his exercise. There was only a minute left on the timer, but his thoughts were no longer on the stair-stepper, nor his total victory over Net Force. This was unexpected, and unexpected was always bad.
Natadze sat in the clean car, staring though the windshield at a bus that had stopped to disgorge passengers. Cox had reacted as though he knew nothing about the explosion, but Natadze was no longer fooled. There had been nothing in Natadze’s house to link him to Cox, nothing. But a man that rich had different ideas about property, about the value of things. His only passion was in playing his business games. It was all about the deal for him. Money, possessions, they were just ways to keep score, to show that he was winning. Had Natadze mentioned his destroyed instrument collection, Cox would undoubtedly have offered to buy him news ones. A man like Cox would never understand that there were some things money couldn’t buy. Perhaps it was time for him to learn that.
Natadze felt a great sadness underlying his anger. He remembered a fortune cookie he’d gotten at a Chinese restaurant, in England, of all places, years before. The fortune had said, “Minimize expectations to avoid being disappointed.” That had been in line with his beliefs, and he had kept the slip of paper as a reminder. It was even now in his wallet. But he had come to trust Cox, to expect certain things from him. That had been his mistake. You could depend on no one in the world except for yourself. Sad, but true.
The bus pulled away from the curb, and Natadze followed it. There were things he had to do. Best he get to them.
39
Thorn sat at his desk, wondering if his decision to leave business and get into government service had been wise. His first major case had turned into a convoluted knot that Alexander the Great couldn’t cut. Things were easier in the corporate world. Yes, there were political problems, but the bottom line was more important, and when you were the boss, you could solve a lot of situations by simply willing it so.
He sighed. He had known it would be a challenge, but not that it would be so frustrating.
His phone chirped. He picked it up. He would have to watch himself, he might take somebody’s head off, the way he felt.
“Thorn,” he said.
“Commander? This is Watkins, Main Gate Security.”
Thorn looked at the guard’s image on the intercom screen. “Yes?”
“We have a man out here asking for you, says it’s a personal matter. His name is, ah, Dennis McManus.”
It took a second for the name to register.
“The thing is, sir, he’s carrying a big case full of weird stuff, and part of it is—”
“—a sword,” Thorn finished.
“Yes, sir. Are you expecting him? He’s not on the call list.”
How silly was this? The guy just shows up at the gate? Carrying his fencing gear? Expecting Thorn to let him in and square off in some sort of duel of honor?
Thorn thought about it for a moment. Another day, a different time, he would have had the guard shoo the guy away. But the man had picked the wrong time to call. “Yes, I forgot to add him. Give him a visitor’s tag, have somebody escort him to the waiting room outside my office.”
After he shut the com off, Thorn realized that his heart was beating pretty fast. He knew why McManus was here: More than two decades, and he had come for a rematch! The guy must be missing a couple of screws.
Or maybe not. This business with the Russians and the rich man and even Marissa had shown Thorn he wasn’t nearly as in control as he liked to be. That there were all kinds of things beyond his ability to make dance as he wanted them to dance. But, by God, he still knew how to wield a sword.
Maybe it wasn’t crazy. Maybe this was exactly what he needed, too.
Thorn stood, and rolled his shoulders, loosening them. His own practice gear was in the gym down the hall. This guy wanted to play? Fine. Win, lose, or draw, this was something Thorn felt comfortable doing, and it would be one-on-one, nobody else to blame if he couldn’t deal with it. And that was exactly how he liked it.
“Bring it on, buddy,” he said softly, as he headed for the office door.
Thorn didn’t smile as he met McManus. He dismissed the escort.
“Gym is this way,” he said.
McManus didn’t smile, either. Then again, he didn’t seem surprised that Thorn would have his own gear here at work. A man might stop practicing, but once you were a serious fencer, you never completely put it away. On some level, it colored your thoughts forever. All the fencing buddies Thorn had kept in touch with who had competed in college still kept their blades, and while most of them didn’t fence in tournaments anymore, all of them still trained. That Thorn still checked into the newsgroups on-line would be enough to tell McManus that he had kept up at least that much interest.
Once a swordsman, always a swordsman.
McManus followed him down the hall to the gym, and neither of them spoke. This time of the afternoon, the place was empty, which was fine by Thorn. Without a word, he went to get his gear, as McManus began unpacking his own.
When Thorn returned, he found McManus whipping his epee back and forth to loosen his arm and wrist. He had laid out his mask, plastron, and jacket, but had not put any of them on.
The button on the blade’s tip was in place. At least the guy hadn’t filed it sharp or anything, so he wasn’t planning on it being a death match.
McManus caught the look. He extended the blade at chest-level toward Thorn. “You can check it, if you want. I don’t want to hurt you, Thorn, just beat you. That director gave you the match I should have won. I could have been champion except for that.”
Thorn shook his head. A true champion would have eaten the loss and worked harder to maintain his
