"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-cocked and do something astonishingly 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.
"I'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 memorize 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 ga
te.
"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 muffled 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 button a couple of times. "Damn 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."
Achilles grinned. "Do you know what Poke was saying just before she had that accident and fell into the Rhine?"
Bean said nothing.
"She was saying that I shouldn't hold a grudge against you for telling her to kill me when we first met. He's just a little kid, she said. He didn't know what he was saying."
Still, Bean said nothing.
"I wish I could tell you Sister Carlotta's last words, but...you know how collateral damage is in wartime. You just don't get any warning."
"The embryos," said Bean. "You said you were going to show me where they are."
"All right then," said Achilles. "Follow me."
As soon as Achilles's back was turned, the doctor looked at Bean and frantically shook his head.
"It's all right," Bean told the doctor and the other soldier. "You can go on out. You won't be needed any more."
Achilles turned back around. "You're letting your escort go?"
"Except for Peter," said Bean. "He insists on staying with me."
"I didn't hear him say that," said Achilles. "I mean, he seemed so eager to get away when he left this place, I thought for sure he didn't want to see it again."
"I'm trying to figure out how you were able to fool so many people," said Peter.
"But I'm not trying to fool you," said Achilles. "Though I can see how someone like you would long to find a really masterful liar to study with." Laughing, Achilles turned his back again, and led the way toward the main office building.
Peter came closer to Bean as they followed him inside. "Are you sure you know what you're doing?" he asked quietly.
"I told you before, I have no idea."
Once inside, they were indeed confronted by another dozen soldiers. Bean knew them all by name. But he said nothing to them, and none of them met his gaze or showed any sign that they knew him.
What does Achilles want? thought Bean. His first plan was to send me out of the compound with a remote-controlled bomb, so it's not as if he planned to keep me alive. Now he's got me surrounded by soldiers, and doesn't tell them to shoot.
Achilles turned around and faced him. "Bean," he said. "I can't believe you didn't make some kind of arrangement for me to get out of here."
"Is that why you tried to blow me up?" asked Bean.
"That was when I believed you'd try to kill me as soon as you thought you had the embryos. Why didn't you?"
"Because I knew I didn't have the embryos."
"Do you and Petra already think of them as your children? Have you named them yet?"
"There's no arrangement to get you out of here, Achilles, because there's no place for you to go. The only people that still had any use for you are busy getting their butts kicked by a bunch of pissed-off Muslims. You saw to it that you couldn't go anywhere in space when you shot down that shuttle."
"In all fairness, Bean, you have to remember that nobody was supposed to know it was me who did it. But someone really should tell me--why wasn't Peter on that shuttle? I suppose somebody caught my informant." He looked back and forth from Peter to Bean, looking for an answer.
Bean did not confirm or deny. Peter, too, kept his silence. What if Achilles lived through this somehow? Why bring down Achilles's wrath on a man who already had enough trouble in his life?
"But if you caught my informant," said Achilles, "why in the world would Chamrajnagar--or Graff, if it was him--launch the shuttle anyway? Was catching me doing something naughty so important they'd risk a shuttle and its crew just to catch me? I find that quite...flattering. Sort of like winning the Nobel Prize for scariest villain."
"I think," said Bean, "that you don't have the embryos at all. I think you dispersed them as soon as you got them. I think you already had them implanted in surrogates."
"Wrong," said Achilles. He reached inside his pants pocket and took out a small container. Exactly like the ones in which the embryos had been frozen. "I brought one along, just to show you. Of course, he's probably thawed quite a bit. My body heat and all that. What do you think? Do we still have time to get this little sucker implanted in somebody? Petra's already pregnant, I hear, so you can't use her. I know! Peter's mother! She always likes to be so helpful, and she's used to giving birth to geniuses. Here, Peter, catch!"
He tossed the container toward Peter, but too hard, so it sailed over Peter's upstretched hands and hit the floor. It didn't break, but instead rolled and rolled.
"Aren't you going to get it?" Achilles asked Bean.
Bean shrugged. He walked over to where the container had come to rest. The liquid inside it sloshed. Fully thawed.
He stepped on it, broke it, ground it under his foot.
Achilles whistled. "Wow. You are some disciplinarian. Your kids can't get away with anything with you."
Bean walked toward Achilles.
"Now, Bean, I can see how you might be irritated at me, but I never claimed to be an athlete. When did I have a chance to play ball, will you tell me that? You grew up where I did. I can't help it that I don't know how to throw accurately."
He was still affecting his ironic tone of voice, but Bean could see that Achilles was afraid now. He had been expecting Bean to beg, or grieve--something that would keep him off balance and give control to Achilles. But Bean was seeing things through Achilles's eyes now, and he understood: You do whatever your enemy can't believe that you would even think of doing. You just do it.
Bean reached into the butt holster that rode inside his pants, hanging from the waistband, and pulled out the flat .22-caliber pistol concealed there. He pointed it at Achilles's right eye, then the left.
Achilles took a couple of steps backward. "You can't kill me," he said. "You don't know where the embryos are."
"I know you don't have them," said Bean, "and that I'm not going to get them without letting you g
o. And I'm not letting you go. So I guess that means the embryos are forever lost to me. Why should you go on living?"
"Suri," said Achilles. "Are you asleep?"
Suriyawong pulled his long knife from its sheath.
"That's not what's needed here," said Achilles. "He has a gun."
"Hold still, Achilles," said Bean. "Take it like a man. Besides, if I miss, you might live through it and spend the rest of your days as a brain-damaged shell of a man. We want this to be nice and clean and final, don't we?"
Achilles pulled another vial out of his pockets. "This is the real thing, Bean." He reached out his hand, offering it. "You killed one, but there are still the other four."
Bean slapped it out of his hand. This one broke when it hit the floor.
"Those are your children you're killing!" cried Achilles.
"I know you," said Bean. "I know that you would never promise me something you could actually deliver."
"Suriyawong!" shouted Achilles. "Shoot him!"
"Sir," said Suriyawong.
It was the first sound he'd made since Bean came through the east gate.
Suriyawong knelt down, laid his knife on the smooth floor, and slid it toward Achilles until it rested at his feet.
"What's this supposed to be?" demanded Achilles.
"The loan of a knife," said Suriyawong.
"But he has a gun!" cried Achilles.
"I expect you to solve your own problems," said Suriyawong, "without getting any of my men killed."
"Shoot him!" cried Achilles. "I thought you were my friend."
"I told you from the start," said Suriyawong. "I serve the Hegemon." And with that, Suriyawong turned his back on Achilles.
So did all the other soldiers.
Now Bean understood why Suriyawong had worked so hard to earn Achilles's trust: so that at this moment of crisis, Suri was in a position to betray him.
Achilles laughed nervously. "Come on now, Bean. We've known each other a long time." He had backed up against a wall. He tried to lean against it. But his legs were a little wobbly and he started to slide down the wall. "I know you, Bean," he said. "You can't just kill a man in cold blood, no matter how much you hate him. It's not in you to do that."
"Yes it is," said Bean.
He aimed the pistol down at Achilles's right eye and pulled the trigger. The eye snapped shut from the wind of the bullet passing between the eyelids and from the obliteration of the eye itself. His head rocked just a little from the force of the little bullet entering, but not leaving.
Then he slumped over and sprawled out on the floor. Dead.
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