Peel smiled and gave him a short nod. Such a good fellow to have around. Pity about all that Irish business. Still, the regiment's loss was Goswell's gain. Would that he had another dozen like Peel. Good help was so hard to come by these days.
"Excellent scones, my lord."
"I'll have Applewhite tell Cook you said so."
This is how a gentleman was supposed to breakfast. On a sunny spring day at one's country estate, on tea and good scones, in the company of decent fellows. Indeed.
Toni and Alex sat in a small restaurant near their hotel, having coffee and breakfast. She said, "We have a flight leaving from Heathrow at noon. I couldn't get us on the Concorde or on a direct, so we'll have to change planes at Kennedy for a cropduster to Dulles."
Alex sipped his coffee, then said, "You could stay here. There's no need for you to kill your vacation."
"Stay here by myself? What fun would that be?"
"Well, this silat class you found sounds interesting."
"Two hours in the evening. If you go, I'm going. You'll need me at work."
He stirred his eggs around with his fork, not really interested in eating them. "Over easy," he said. "If these things had been fried any harder, you could play hockey with them."
"I'm sorry about Jay," she said.
"The doctor said he would be fine. Probably no lasting effects."
"Even so."
"I can't believe that he was injured due to something that happened in VR." Alex stared at the hard eggs.
"You saw the reports from the Brits and the Japanese. Same thing happened to their people, and they were both poking around in the same area Jay was."
"It still doesn't seem possible."
"Neither does breaking the code for the Pakistani train. Whoever did that is leaps and bounds ahead of us. They know things we don't."
"There's a cheery thought."
She looked at him. He seemed terribly glum. "Something else on your mind, Alex?"
He prodded the eggs a final time, then put his fork down. "Well, yeah. I didn't want to bother you with it."
"Go ahead, bother me. What?"
"I got a notice from my ex-wife's lawyers on an e-fax this morning."
"And…?"
"Megan is suing for total custody of Susan."
"Oh, no."
"Oh, yeah. Maybe I shouldn't have decked her new boyfriend."
"You said she was planning to do it before that."
"Yes. But that probably didn't help. Or that I said if he slept over again with Susie in the house, I'd throw an adultery charge at her."
"You were angry."
"Uh-huh. And stupid. She's not a bad woman, it's just that she knows how to get under my skin."
"Don't make excuses for her. She's a bitch."
He smiled. "Unfortunately, she's a bitch who is the mother of my only child, and she wants to take my daughter away. To have that bearded teacher become Daddy instead."
"What did your lawyer say?"
"What lawyers always say. Don't worry, he'll handle it, Megan won't win."
She reached across the table and took his hand. "It'll work out. You're too good a person; any judge will see that."
He smiled again, turned his hand up and squeezed hers. "Thanks. I love you."
"That's why I'm here."
She had loved Alex for a long time, and even though he could sometimes be exasperating, with the way he bottled up his emotions and the way he tried to shield her from things, in the grand cosmic scheme of things, these were minor problems. They'd get them worked out, eventually. She was sure of it.
Despite his resolve to get to bed early, the depth of the night found John Howard standing in a parking lot outside the Luxor Hotel and Casino, staring into the sky. He'd just taken a long midnight walk. A crisp, dry wind blew and whirled among the cars, stirring dust. The parking lot was surrounded by palm trees and other vegetation not native to this area. The Nevada summers were hot enough to convince the trees they could thrive — as long as they were watered — but the palms looked somehow uncomfortable as they stood around the edges of the concrete, swaying in the breeze, as if they knew they didn't belong here.
From the apex of the giant black pyramid that was the Luxor, a tight ring of spotlights, focused into one large ray, beamed straight up into the night. The heat from the laserlike column that shot up was intense enough that it sucked air and dust into itself, shoving it heavenward in a fountain of photons. Night had to watch Las Vegas from a distance; the city didn't allow the dark to come in.
Howard observed the boiling light beam. A moth that ventured too close to that white column would find itself roasted and blown halfway to the moon real quick.
There was something incredibly decadent about the whole city of Las Vegas, and the Luxor was a good example of it. More than four thousand rooms, at least half a dozen theme restaurants, a casino that never shut down, an Olympic-sized swimming pool, plus a boat voyage to the Land of the Dead, right in the atrium. It was ancient Egypt by way of Walt Disney, and for a dollar, you could tug on the arm of an Egyptian deity and take a chance on the big payoff. Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen, place your bets….
He had gone in and looked around and been amazed, but also overwhelmed, by it all. Here outside the massive structure, whose entrance was marked by a giant obelisk that shamed Cleopatra's Needle, and guarded by a sphinx in much better repair than the big one in Egypt, Howard got a sense of how truly rich the United States was. A nation that could produce such places as this, designed for leisure, for entertainment, for the millions who could afford to come and play here, well, that said a lot about such a country. He could hardly blame the owners, whose goal was to separate suckers from their money. They had done a great job. But as attractive and over the top as it was, there was something… repellent about it at the same time.
Las Vegas called to the party-loving hearts in people, the carpe diem, grasshopper, be-here-now-and-devil-take-tomorrow psyches. But it also called to the dark side, the desperate, the greedy, the addicted. It was plastic and neon and all that was cheap and shoddy about America. But it was also fun.
Howard laughed and began the hike back toward his own motel room. Getting to be a philosopher in your old age, eh, John? Next thing you know, you'll be sitting in a dark room contemplating your navel.
He laughed again. Well, maybe not just yet.
Ruzhyo awoke from a troubled sleep, coming alert all at once as he had learned to do years ago in Spetsnaz. He listened but heard nothing out of the ordinary. After a few minutes, he got up, went to the bathroom, then walked to the door of the trailer and opened it. Naked, he looked into the desert.
The night was clear, and stars beyond counting hung in the sky, hard, glittery pinpoints. A breeze blew and stirred the scrub and sand, but there was nothing else moving. No signs of life.
He rubbed at his chin. He had not shaved in several days, and perhaps it was time to do so.
A moment later, he closed the door. Something was wrong. Danger lurked outside his door. Even though he could not see nor hear it, he knew it was there.
He sighed. Now it was time to take the guns out and make ready. There were other things to check, too, preparations he had made when first he arrived. If Death had come to claim him at last, he would not feel sorrow, but if he lost the battle, he would do so trying his best to win. It was rusty and not used of late, but all he had left was his craft. He would display it as best he could.