Thorn offered the tip of his epee, to show the b.u.t.ton was firmly affixed. McMa.n.u.s touched it, tested the tightness.

"You could cheat," the man said. "Pretend that a touch wasn't valid."

Thorn waved. "And so could you. But what's the point? There's no one else here. There are no hidden cameras watching us, no audience to cheer, and no director to fool. It's just you and me. One of us scores, we'll both know, and that's what this is all about, isn't it?"

Thorn stripped off his shirt, glad that he had kept in good enough shape so that wouldn't be embarra.s.sing. He tossed the shirt onto the bench, turned his back, and walked to the middle of the mat. He turned around, his weapon pointed down.

"Fish or cut bait, Rapier. Your choice."

McMa.n.u.s practically tore his shirt off, and he hadn't gotten fat in his middle age, either. He strode onto the mat toward Thorn. They faced each other from six feet away. Thorn raised his blade in salute. McMa.n.u.s mirrored him.

"En garde!" Thorn said. Thorn said.

He expected McMa.n.u.s to be tentative. This was unfamiliar territory for both of them, fencing without protection, and while there was little chance of a fatal injury, it would be all too easy to lose an eye. McMa.n.u.s knew that as well as he did, and so he a.s.sumed they would both start slowly, each one trying to measure his opponent before the action got hot and heavy.

He was wrong.

McMa.n.u.s stomped his front foot, hard, trying to distract him, then threw himself into a lunge. His point started high, flicking toward Thorn's face, then dropping down into an attempt at binding Thorn's blade.

McMa.n.u.s had been practicing. Or at least he'd stayed in shape. He'd thrown that move tightly, and at speed. Good.

Thorn smiled and stepped back, out of range, declining the opportunity to go toe-to-toe with his opponent. As McMa.n.u.s came back to guard, Thorn threw him a brief salute.

"Nice try," he said.

McMa.n.u.s didn't reply. He merely dipped his point and advanced once more.

McMa.n.u.s liked to infight. Thorn knew that. He also liked to control his opponent's blade, beating and binding at every opportunity. Thorn knew that, too. The question was, what could he do with that knowledge?

As his opponent came forward, Thorn let his own point drift high, raising his guard as though he were going to press at McMa.n.u.s's face.

As he'd expected, McMa.n.u.s threw a quick beat at Thorn's blade, gauging, testing, probing. Thorn disengaged, dropping below the blade and taking a small step back, still pressing high.

McMa.n.u.s beat again, and again Thorn disengaged, setting up a rhythm, setting up an expectation, setting up his opponent.

Beat, disengage, advance, retreat.

Again.

Thorn knew this wasn't VR. He didn't have an infinite amount of room behind him, and couldn't keep retreating forever. But then, he didn't think he'd have to. McMa.n.u.s had never been patient.

He saw McMa.n.u.s's eyes narrow ever so slightly, something that would never have been visible had they been wearing masks, and thought, This is it. This is it.

Beat.

Disengage.

Only this time, McMa.n.u.s antic.i.p.ated his movement, stepping forward more quickly to close the distance, his own blade following Thorn's and trying to bind it. His point came out of line, his hand lifting away from the guard position as he tried to take Thorn's blade.

Antic.i.p.ation, Thorn thought, Thorn thought, will get you killed. will get you killed.

As McMa.n.u.s stepped forward, Thorn did, too, his own point circling away from any contact with his opponent's epee.

As they closed, their hips touched. In a tournament, the director would have called halt, but this was not a tournament, and there was no director.

McMa.n.u.s reacted well, using the momentum of his attempted bind to try and bring his point around, lifting his hand, his arm, his shoulder even to try and strike at Thorn, but Thorn was ahead of him.

Thorn's point had pa.s.sed above McMa.n.u.s's shoulder. He raised his own hand now, using his right elbow to keep McMa.n.u.s's point away from him, and drove his point solidly downward, striking McMa.n.u.s hard right at the base of his spine.

Touch.

A killing blow.

Touche.

Both fencers froze, Thorn in victory, McMa.n.u.s in shock.

"E la," Thorn whispered, the traditional French phrase that literaly meant, "And there," but in reality meant, "In your face." Thorn whispered, the traditional French phrase that literaly meant, "And there," but in reality meant, "In your face."

Then, still smiling, he turned his back and started to walk away.

Behind him, belatedly, McMa.n.u.s came back to life. There was a pause, then a gasp, and then Thorn heard him shout, "No!" "No!"

A moment later he heard another sound, one he had not expected. He heard a thud as McMa.n.u.s drove his own point into the floor, hard. He heard the stress of the metal as McMa.n.u.s continued to press. And then he heard the sudden snap as the tip broke off.

All that in an instant.

And then he heard the sound of McMa.n.u.s rushing toward him, broken blade in hand.

Thorn spun, his own blade flashing in front of him as he tried to come back to guard, but McMa.n.u.s was on top of him and there was no time for anything but pure reaction.

Thorn's blade was still pointed downward. He drew it sideways, intercepting McMa.n.u.s's broken tip, and executed a perfect clockwise bind, taking McMa.n.u.s's blade to the side. This took Thorn's own point away from the other man, but Thorn was no longer interested in scoring touches. He'd won. Now it was time to end this.

McMa.n.u.s stood before him, a look of unthinking rage on his face. His blade was off to Thorn's left, trapped-for the moment. Thorn's tip was pointed toward the floor, his blade locked tightly against McMa.n.u.s, his bell guard beside his own left ear.

Without thinking, Thorn drove his bell guard into McMa.n.u.s's face, striking him hard at the bridge of his nose.

McMa.n.u.s cried out and fell down, blood flowing.

Thorn stepped forward one last time, standing over his fallen opponent, his left foot on McMa.n.u.s's broken blade, right foot resting lightly on his chest. He pressed the tip of his epee into McMa.n.u.s's throat.

"You're beaten," he said. "It's over."

He didn't wait for an answer. He didn't need to. He simply spun once more and walked away without looking back.

40.

Long Island, New York Natadze drove, c.o.x seated in the front pa.s.senger seat of the Cadillac. It was one of the sporty models, smaller and less conspicuous than a limo. They were on a long stretch of relatively empty road on the way to the city; not much traffic at this hour-mostly soccer moms and delivery trucks, and none of them close.

Which was the very reason he had chosen this road.

"We've won, Eduard. The government's offer makes that clear. They don't have enough to proceed, or they are afraid of upsetting the apple cart, whichever. It doesn't matter. They can bl.u.s.ter and threaten, but in the end, the victory is ours. They have nothing they can use to trace us."

Natadze nodded. He was remembering what was left of his guitar collection in the blasted-out bas.e.m.e.nt of his house in Washington. All that carefully aged and worked spruce and cedar and rosewood, gone. He recalled the Spross with the unique pattern in its flame-maple back; the Hauser copy by Schramm, one of the early prototypes; the new Bogdanovich with the natural-wood rosette-all of them and half a dozen others, completely destroyed. Yes, he had recovered the ones in the safe, but he had lost ten concert-quality instruments. For Natadze, it was as if somebody had destroyed a famous painting-even if you owned the picture, it would be a crime against humanity to desecrate it.

He saw the pothole in the road just ahead. Hidden in the trees and bushes a few hundred meters short of that was the little SUV wagon, chosen for its dark green color so as to blend in.

c.o.x said, "So we go on about our business as usual. Now that all traces of the file are gone except for the one Net Force has, there won't be any way they can corroborate it. We're home free, Eduard-whoa!"

Natadze hit the pothole with the right front tire, and the car jounced hard.

The hubcap he had loosened on the front wheel came off, exactly as he'd hoped. It rolled alongside the car for a moment, bounced, then fell over. He tracked it in the rearview mirror.

"Sorry," Natadze said. He made a show of looking into the rearview mirror. "Uh oh."

"What?"

"The wheel cover came off. It's lying in the road behind us."

He slowed the car, pulled onto the shoulder.

"What are you doing? It's just a hubcap. Leave it."

"It will only take a few seconds. Remember the milk truck?"

This had been key in Natadze's plan, a thing about which he and c.o.x had spoken recently. Apparently a milk truck had somehow dropped an empty plastic carrier that had not been properly stowed. The driver had noticed it at the time, but he had been in a hurry, and had left it in the road where it fell. It was just an empty crate, not worth stopping for. A motorist traveling the road shortly thereafter had either hit the crate, or swerved to avoid hitting it. The car's driver had lost control, slammed into a building, and had died. c.o.x had mentioned the incident to Natadze, railing at how the milk company's liability insurance would go up because of the lawsuit that was sure to follow, and how hard would it have been for the moronic driver to have pulled over and collected the fallen crate?

c.o.x remembered. "Ah, good point."

Natadze exited the car. He smiled at c.o.x and headed for the hubcap. When he was fifty meters away, he left the road and hurried to a large oak tree. Once he was behind it, he pulled the small radio transmitter from his pocket and flipped the switch covers up-there were two of them, for safety.

He leaned out, saw that c.o.x was still in the car, and ducked back behind the tree. He pressed the two b.u.t.tons that sent the signal.

c.o.x turned to look at Eduard, and saw him leave the road. If the hubcap had rolled off the pavement, then it wasn't a danger, why was he bothering?

When Eduard ducked behind a big tree, a terrible premonition seized c.o.x. No! Oh, no-! No! Oh, no-!

He reached for the door handle, jerked on it, screamed, "Eduard, don't-!"

The sound of c.o.x yelling his name was blotted out by the explosion, terribly loud in the sunny afternoon. A beat later, car shrapnel sleeted against the tree trunk, hitting hard enough to embed itself into the bark. The bulk of the explosive had been placed in front of the front pa.s.senger seat, in the air bag compartment, with another charge under the seat, and a third in the pa.s.senger door. The three together were sufficient to blast the car apart, and there was little chance that anybody inside would survive.

Natadze hurried to his hidden SUV, unlocked it, got in, cranked the engine, and pulled out onto the road. He pulled up next to the Cadillac, which was smoking, but not on fire, the vehicle wrenched and twisted as if attacked by an enraged giant. There was no need to get out and check-the man who had been Samuel c.o.x was certainly dead. One look at the smashed body confirmed that.

Cars were approaching from both directions, and Natadze accelerated and left the scene. It was time to leave the country for a while. South America, perhaps. Or one of the African countries where money could buy privacy. He had more than enough saved to live well for years. Maybe it was time to get serious about music, and to retire from his line of work.

But he didn't have to decide now. He would have plenty of time to think about it.

He looked into the rearview mirror at the destroyed car dwindling in the distance. "Say h.e.l.lo to the Devil when you see him, Mr. c.o.x. Ask him how he is enjoying my guitars."

41.

Jay rushed into Thorn's office, breathing hard. "You hear the news?"

Thorn raised his eyebrows. "What?"

"c.o.x. He's dead! His car blew up!"

"Really?"

"According to CNN. A guy I know at CopNet confirmed it. Out on Long Island this afternoon."

"Huh. How about that."

"Maybe G.o.d decided to take a hand."

"Maybe."

"I gotta go tell Julio, and I need to call Toni and Alex."

After Jay was gone, Thorn leaned back in his chair and sighed. He had been feeling pretty good after the sword match with his troll stalker, but this news sobered him a bit.

Captain Julio Fernandez would act surprised when Jay found him, but he wouldn't really be surprised. They hadn't been able to nail c.o.x, for reasons beyond their control, but there was more than one way to see the scales balanced. c.o.x was guilty of much, and it was right that he should be punished. Like Marissa had said in her story about the snow runners: Maybe they couldn't come at him directly, but there were other, less orthodox paths. Back and twisty roads that arrived, eventually, at the same place. Not the first choice, but better than not getting there at all.

His private line cheeped. He looked down at the ID. Marissa.