Fire with Fire(92)

“Well, congratulations. And feel free to risk my life again—and Opal’s—whenever it’s convenient for you.”

Downing kept his voice calm. “Like it or not, we were right. There were counter-operatives at Sounion  , we did eliminate them, and Parthenon did come to a successful conclusion.”

“Sure, you were right, but that just reinforces your assumptions that you can always outthink everyone else—which you can’t—and that your ends justify your means. But your means—your lies—are always part of your ends, too. How you achieve something always leaves its imprint upon what you achieve.”

Tarasenko looked out the window of his office and scratched his ear. “Mr. Riordan, you speak as eloquently as anyone I’ve ever heard. But I wonder: do you really—really—believe that our preferred method of operation is misdirection and deception?”

Caine snorted a laugh. “How could I not suspect that? You covered up my disappearance on Luna. The Pavirus was clearly your hoax. You staked me out as a Judas goat at Sounion  . One hundred hours of my most important memories have been erased. Every time I’m told I’m free, I get pulled back into cloak-and-dagger land again. So you tell me: where does the duplicity end?”

Tarasenko continued to smile; they waited.

After five seconds, Downing noticed that Tarasenko hadn’t looked away from the point in space at which he had been staring. Nor had he blinked. As Caine rose from his chair, Downing’s breath caught and jammed in his throat: “Arvid?”

The next thirty seconds were utter, hushed chaos. Once they had Tarasenko on the floor, CPR produced no results, and Downing noted the encroachment of the same rapid pallor that had swept so quickly up and over Nolan’s face two days earlier at Sounion  .

After thirty seconds, Caine jumped up, abandoning the chest compressions, grabbed for the phone.

“No,” said Downing.

Receiver in his hand, Caine froze. “What do you mean, ‘no?’ He needs—”

“No,” repeated Downing, leaning back from Tarasenko’s body. “We need to control this.”

“Control this? How?”

“We have to think how this will look, how the media will begin to probe us if we call this in right now, without any prior—”

But Caine had dropped the phone just a sharply as the stunned expression had dropped off his face: he was moving toward the door.

“Where are you going?”

“To tell Tarasenko’s assistant that his boss needs medical help—now.”

“Caine, I can’t let you do that. Don’t make me order you—”

“Richard, now it’s your memory that’s faulty: I’ve stopped taking your orders. Remember?” He opened the door.

Downing was surprised by a sudden, dizzying panic so intense that his vision blurred. “But you can’t leave—”

“Oh no? Why?”

Downing reached for an answer, had none. “I’m in this alone, now.”

“Richard, you always have been. Nolan, Tarasenko, you—each trapped in your own private bubble of secrets and uncertainties. Maybe that’s the nature of organizations—and relationships—built on lies.” And he was out the door before Downing could find a suitable reply—because, Richard realized, there was no such reply to be found.

CIRCE

The tall man leaned away from the binoculars and breathed again. Robin Astor-Smath wondered what would happen next.

The man removed his two fingers from the small black cube, used his other hand to replace his sunglasses.

“Well?” Robin said in a higher pitch than he had intended.

“Well what?”

“What happens now? When do you—?”

“It is over; it is done.”

Astor-Smath blinked. “Over? How?”

“That does not concern you.” The man backed away from the window, which was half-filled with the bright white façade of the northern side of the Capitol Building. Behind him, the dome rose up over his short-cropped hair like the top half of a guillotined egg.

Astor-Smath looked at the box: what was it? A communication device? A remote control for some weapon planted in the Capitol Building? If so, its appearance was quite odd: no external marks of any kind. Not even any seams suggesting manufacture—but now, an odd smell was emanating from it, a troubling smell that was akin to a shudder-inducing mix of musk, carrion, and patchouli—and something else that he could not place.

The man shook the two fingers that he had placed in the box—much as if he had scalded them—and closed the container, none too gently.

“Naturally, we take your word for the successful completion of—”