Shadow Puppets Part 33

"That's right, Peter. He's the one with the plan this time. And I'm the one who can surprise him by not doing what he expects."

"All right," said Peter "I'm in."

"What?"

"You've convinced me. I'm in."

"You're in what?"

"I'm going in the gate with you."

"No you're not."

"I'm Hegemon. I'm not standing outside while you go in and save my people."

"He'll be very happy to kill you along with me."

"You first."

"No, you first."

"Whatever," said Peter. "You're not getting through that gate unless I'm one of your five."

"Look, Peter," said Bean. "The reason we're in this predicament is that you think you're smarter than everybody else, so no matter what advice you get, you go off half-c.o.c.ked and do something astonis.h.i.+ngly dumb."

"But I stay around to pick up the pieces."

"I give you credit for that."

"I won't do anything you don't tell me to," said Peter. "It's your show."

"I need to have all five of my escort be highly trained soldiers."

"No you don't," said Peter "Because if there's any shooting, five won't be enough anyway. So you have to count on there being no shooting. So I might as well be one of the five."

"But I don't want to die with you beside me," said Bean.

"Fine with me, I don't want to die beside you, either"

"You have another seventy or eighty years ahead of you. You're going to gamble with that? Me, I'm just playing with house money."

"You're the best, Bean," said Peter.

"That was in school. What armies have I commanded since then? Other people are doing all the fighting now. I'm not the best, I'm retired."

"You don't retire from your own mind."

"People retire from their minds all the time. What won't let you alone is your reputation."

"Well, I love arguing philosophy with you," said Peter abruptly, "but you need your sleep and I need mine. See you at the east gate in the morning."

In a moment he was out the door So what was that sudden departure about?

Bean had the sneaking suspicion that maybe Peter finally believed him that he didn't have a plan and had no guarantee of winning. Not even, in fact, a decent chance of winning, if by winning he meant an outcome in which Bean was alive, Achilles was dead, and Bean had the babies. No doubt Peter had to run and get a life insurance policy. Or drum up some last minute emergency that would absolutely prevent him from going through the gate with Bean after all. "So sorry, I wish I were going with you, but you'll do fine, I know it."

Bean thought he'd have trouble getting to sleep, what with the catnaps he got on the plane and the tension of tomorrow's events preying on his mind.

So naturally he fell asleep so fast he didn't even remember turning off the light.In the morning, Bean got up and posted a message to Achilles, naming a time about an hour later for their meeting. Then he wrote a brief note to Petra, just so she'd know he was thinking of her in case this was the last day of his life. Then another note to his parents, and one to Nikolai. At least if he managed to bring Achilles down with him, they'd be safe. That was something.

He walked downstairs to find Peter already waiting beside the IF car that would take them to the perimeter that had been established around the compound. They rode in near silence, because there was really nothing more to say.

At the perimeter, near the east gate, Bean found out very quickly that Peter hadn't lied-the IF was standing behind his determination to go in with Bean's group. Well, that was fine. Bean didn't really need his companions to do much.

As he had requested before leaving Damascus, the IF had a uniformed doctor, two highly trained sharpshooters, and a fully equipped hazard squad, one of whom was to come in with Bean's party.

"Achilles will have a container that purports to be a transport refrigerator for a half dozen frozen embryos," Bean said to the hazardist. "If I have you carry it outside, then that means I'm sure it's a bomb or contains some toxin, and I want it treated that way-even if I say something different inside there. If it turns out to have been embryos after all, well, that's my own mistake, and I'll explain it to my wife. If I have the doctor here carry it, that means I'm sure it's the embryos, and the package is to be treated that way."

"And what if you're not sure?" asked Peter"

"l'll be sure," said Bean, "or I won't give it to anybody."

"Why don't you just carry it yourself?" asked the hazardist, "and tell us what to do when it gets outside?"

Peter answered for him. "Mr. Delphiki doesn't expect to get back out alive."

"My goal for all four of you," said Bean, "is for you to walk out of there uninjured. There's no chance of that if you start shooting, for any reason. That's why none of you is going to carry a loaded weapon."

They looked at him as if he were insane.

"I'm not going in there unarmed," said one of the other men.

"Fine," said Bean. "Then there'll be one less. He didn't say I had to bring five."

"Technically," said Peter to the other sharpshooter, "you won't be unarmed. Just unloaded. So they'll treat you as if did have bullets, because they won't know you don't."

"I'm a soldier, not a sap," said the man, and he walked away.

"Anybody else?" said Bean.

In answer, the other sharpshooter took the full clip out of his weapon, popped out the bullets one by one, and then ejected the first bullet from the chamber "I don't carry a weapon anyway," said the doctor "Don't need a loaded pistol to carry a bomb," said the hazardist.

With a slim plastic .22-caliber pistol already tucked into the back of his pants, Bean was now the only person in his party with a loaded gun.

"I guess we re ready to go," said Bean.It was a dazzling tropical morning as they stepped through the gate into the east garden. Birds in all the trees ranted their calls as if they were trying to memonze something and just couldn't get it to stick. There was not a soul in sight.

Bean wasn't going to wander around searching for Achilles. He definitely wasn't going to get far from the gate. So, about ten paces in, he stopped. So did the others.

And they waited.

It didn't take long. A soldier in the Hegemony uniform stepped out into the open. Then another, and another, until the fifth soldier appeared.

Suriyawong.

He gave no sign of recognition. Rather he looked right past both Bean and Peter as if they were nothing to him.

Achilles stepped out behind them-but stayed close to the trees, so he wouldn't be too easy a target for sharpshooters. He was carrying, as promised, a small transport fridge.

"Bean," he said with a smile. "My how you've grown.

Bean said nothing.

"Oh, we aren't in a jesting mood," he said. "I'm not either, really. It's almost a sentimental moment for me, to see you again. To see you as a man. Considering I knew you when you were this high."

He held out the transport fridge. "Here they are, Bean."

"You're just going to give them to me?"

"I don't really have a use for them. There weren't any takers in the auction."

"Volescu went to a lot of trouble to get these for you," said Bean.

"What trouble? He bribed a guard. Using my money.

"How did you get Volescu to help you, anyway?" asked Bean.

"He owed me," said Achilles. "I'm the one who got him out of jail. I got our brilliant Hegemon here to give me authority to authorize the release of prisoners whose crimes had ceased to be crimes. He didn't make the connection that I'd be releasing your creator into the wild." Achilles grinned at Peter.

Peter said nothing.

"You trained these men well, Bean," said Achilles. "Being with them is like... well, it's like being with my family again. Like on the streets, you know?"

Bean said nothing.

"Well, all right, you don't want to chat, so take the embryos."

Bean remembered one very important fact. Achilles didn't care about killing his victims with his own hands. It was enough for him that they die, whether he was present or not.

Bean turned to the hazardist. "Would you do me a favor and take this just outside the gate? I want to stay and talk with Achilles for a couple of minutes."

The hazardist walked up to Achilles and took the transport fridge from him. "Is it fragile?" he asked.

Achilles answered, "It's very securely packed and padded, but don't play football with it."

In only a few steps, he was out the gate.

"So what did you want to talk about?" asked Achilles.

"A couple of little questions I'm curious about."

"I'll listen. Maybe I'll answer"

"Back in Hyderabad. There was a Chinese officer who knocked you unconscious to break our stalemate."

"Oh, is that who did it?"

"Whatever happened to him?"

"I'm not sure. I think his chopper was shot down in combat only a few days later"

"Oh," said Bean. "Too bad. I wanted to ask him what it felt like to hit you."

"Really, Bean, aren't we both too old for that sort of gibe?"

Outside the gate there was a m.u.f.fled explosion.

Achilles looked around, startled. "What was that?"

"I'm pretty sure," said Bean, "that it was an explosion."

"Of what?"

"Of the bomb you just tried to give me," said Bean. "Inside a containment chamber."

Achilles tried, for a moment, to look innocent. "I don't know what you..."

Then he apparently realized there was no point in feigning ignorance when the thing had just exploded. He pulled the remote detonator out of his pocket, pressed the b.u.t.ton a couple of times. "d.a.m.n all this modern technology, nothing ever works right." He grinned at Bean. "Got to give me credit for trying."

"So... do you have the embryos or not?" asked Bean.

"They're inside, safe," said Achilles.

Bean knew that was a lie. In fact, he had decided yesterday that it was most likely the embryos had never been brought here at all.

But he'd get more mileage out of this by pretending to believe Achilles. And there was always the chance that it wasn't a lie.

"Show me," Bean said.

"You have to come inside, then," said Achilles.

"OK."

"That'll take us outside the range of the sharpshooters you no doubt have all around the compound, waiting to shoot me down."

"And inside the range of whoever you have waiting for me there."

"Bean. Be realistic. You're dead whenever I want you dead."

"Well, that's not strictly true," said Bean. "You've wanted me dead a lot more often than I've died."