— At any time during the creation of Bardem did you get a hint that the program wasn‘t meant for a hedge fund?
A certain sadness came into Bamber‘s face, and he nodded. -But not until near the end. Not even when Noah gave me instructions from his client for the second revision. He told me I needed to expand the parameters of the reallife data to include government responses to terrorist attacks, military incursions, and the like.
— And that didn‘t set off alarm bells?
Bamber sighed. -Why should it? These factors are important to hedge funds since they would significantly impact the financial markets, and it‘s my understanding that some hedge funds are set up to take advantage of shortterm market dislocations.
— But at some point you came to a different conclusion.
Bamber paced around the kitchen, rearranging items that didn‘t need rearranging. -The anomalies kept piling up with each revision, I can see that quite clearly now. He stopped talking abruptly.
— But at the time? she prompted.
— I kept telling myself everything was okay, he said with a good degree of anguish. -I put my head deeper into the increasingly complex algorithms of Bardem. At night, when doubts began to plague me, I focused on the two and a half mil I‘d put to work in Treasury bills, my fuck-you money. He leaned over the sink, his head down. -Then a couple of days ago I hit a tipping point and I knew I couldn‘t let things go on the way they had been. I didn‘t know what to do.
— So you told Steve about Bardem, and Steve did the search on Noah you‘d failed to perform and discovered that he worked for Black River.
— And Steve being Steve, he couldn‘t sit on the information. He was too frightened to go to his superiors, so he passed a thumb drive on to the man he‘d gone to when his internal search at the DoD turned up nothing on Noah.
— Jay Weston, Moira said. -Of course! I poached Jay from Hobart, another private contractor to the military. He‘d have ID‘d Noah right away.
— And now Steve is dead, Bamber moaned, — because of my stupidity and my greed.
Flushed with rage, Moira got up and crossed the kitchen. -Dammit, Bamber, get a grip on yourself. The last thing I need from you is self-pity.
He turned on her. -What‘s the matter with you, don‘t you have even an ounce of humanity? My partner was just murdered.
— I don‘t have time for sentiment or-
— And if I remember right a friend of yours was blown six ways from Sunday right in front of you. Don‘t you have any remorse, any pity? Is there anything inside you except exacting your revenge on Noah?
— What?
— I mean that‘s it, isn‘t it? That‘s what this is all about-you and Noah at each other‘s throats and never mind the collateral damage. Well, fuck him and fuck you!
As he stalked out of the kitchen Moira grabbed on to the sink in order to keep her feet. All at once the kitchen began to tumble over, she seemed to lose her bearings, to have become unmoored so that she could no longer distinguish the floor from the ceiling.
My God, she thought, what’s happening to me? And immediately an image of Ronnie Hart came to her, those lambent eyes watching her from inside the white Buick, Ronnie knowing the end had come and helpless to stop it. The explosion bloomed again in her mind, blotting out sight, sound, and thought.
Why didn’t I save her? Because there wasn‘t time. Why didn’t I try, anyway?
Again, there was no time and Bamber had grabbed her. Why didn’t I break free?
Because the wall of percussion had already hit her, hurling her backward, and if she had been any closer she would have been caught up in the conflagration, she‘d be dead now or, worse, lying in a burn unit, her skin ripped and charred, covered in third-degree burns that would kill her slowly and painfully.
Still. Ronnie was dead. She had survived. Where was the justice in that?
The rational part of her brain told the grieving, irrational part that the world was chaos, it didn‘t care about justice, which was, in any case, a human concept and, therefore, subject to its own form of irrationality. None of this interior debate could stem the tears that stung her eyes, ran down her cheeks, and set her to shivering as if she were ill.
Bamber‘s words came back to haunt her. Was this what it was all about, a blood feud between her and Noah? All at once she was back in Munich with Bourne, climbing the rolling stairs to the airplane bound to take them to Long Beach, California. Then Noah had appeared in the doorway and she recalled the poisonous look in his eye. Had it been jealousy? She‘d been far too distracted then, far too intent on her immediate goal of getting to Long Beach. But now that curdled expression on his face recurred to her like the acrid taste of spoiled food. How could she be certain she wasn‘t misinterpreting this remembered moment between them? Because, now she thought of it, his reaction to her leaving Black River was personal, as if he were her spurned lover. And so moving on from there, could her decision to start a rival company by poaching a select few of the best people from Black River have been in retaliation for Noah not making a play for her when he could have? All at once, she recalled the conversation she‘d had with Jason that night in Bali when they‘d been alone in the pool together. When she‘d told him of her idea to start a rival company to Black River, he‘d warned her that she would make an enemy of Noah, and he was right. Had he known then how Noah felt about her? And what had she felt about Noah? “I gave up trying to please him six months before I quit Black River. It was a fool’s game,” she‘d told Jason that night. What precisely had she meant by that? Hearing it now reverberate in her mind, mixing with all the other subtle revelations, it sounded like something a hurt lover would say.
God almighty, the collateral damage she and Noah had wrought!
Slowly, like a punctured tire, the unreasoning anger went out of her, her grip loosened, and she slid to the floor. If her back hadn‘t been braced against the wooden cabinets, she would have pitched over.
It seemed a long time later-but surely it couldn‘t have been-when she became aware that somebody was in the kitchen with her. In fact, two somebodies. They were crouched down beside her.
— What happened? Bamber asked. -Are you all right?
— I slipped and fell, that‘s all. Moira‘s eyes were perfectly dry now.
— I‘ll fetch you a brandy. Lamontierre, in a white unitard and ballet slippers, a towel draped around his neck, headed back into the living room.
Moira, shrugging off Bamber‘s proffered hand, levered herself to her feet. Lamontierre returned with a snifter half filled with an amber liquid, some of which she drank immediately. The fire worked its way down her throat and flooded her body, bringing her fully back to herself.
— Mr. Lamontierre, she said, — thank you for your hospitality, but to be honest I need to talk to Mr. Bamber in private.
— Of course. If you‘re all right…
— I am.
— Excellent, then I‘ll go shower. H, if you want to stay here for the time being… He regarded Moira for a moment. -Actually, both of you are welcome here for as long as you need.