He should have been at home, visiting with his wife and son, John Howard knew, but he couldn't relax enough. He'd just sit there simmering, and his family would know and feel it. It wouldn't be pleasant for anybody. Might as well be at work, though there didn't seem to be much he could do here, either.
He thought about Ruzhyo, wondered about him. How could a man be a cold-blooded killer? He had started out a soldier, and killing sometimes went with the territory, but somewhere along the way, somebody had recruited the man for wetwork. He had stopped being a soldier and become an assassin, a thing of the dark. Howard could understand that an adrenaline rush could pump you up for sneaking around in the back alleys two steps ahead of somebody chasing you, but the stone-hearted murders? That was different—
"Wool-gathering, John?"
Howard smiled at Fernandez. "Just thinking about our quarry."
"Wishing you knew where to find him?"
"That, too. But more wondering how he can do what does." He explained, expecting Julio to agree with him.
To his surprise, his friend shook his head. "Not a lot of difference, way I see it."
"Shooting men in the back of the head? You don't see the difference?"
"Would they be any deader if he had shot them in the front of the head?"
"Come again?"
"Those two we lost were soldiers, on guard duty. The risk goes with the job. If they'd been paying attention, they'd probably still be alive — or at least they'd have gotten to shoot back. But when you get right down to it, how is it different, really? Somebody shoots you for evil and might, or they shoot you for goodness and right — you're still cold, either way. Their reasons won't matter to you, will they? Dead is dead."
Howard stared at Fernandez as if the sergeant had just turned into a big caterpillar puffing on a hookah: Whoo are youu?
Fernandez caught the look and grinned. "You don't like spies and assassins, but they're as much a part of an army now as they ever were. You want to go into battle with the advantages on your side, or at least not against you. So you send a spy into the enemy camp to find out where they plan to march. He's doing the same to you, so the side with the quicker, smarter, faster spy gets a half step on the other side. That game is as old as war, isn't it?"
"Spies aren't the same as assassins," Howard pointed out.
"Yeah, that's true. But let me ask you a hypothetical question, Colonel. Suppose you could go back in time to Germany in the late thirties—"
"— and assassinate Hitler?" Howard finished. He had heard this one before.
"Yeah. Would you?"
"In a heartbeat. He was a monster. It would save millions of innocent lives."
"You'd still be an assassin, then, right?"
"Yes, but in this case, the ends would justify the means. Sometimes it does, Julio. I'd take the moral heat."
"No question, and I'd pop him, too. But how do we know what our quarry's ends were? Why he got into what he's into? And think about what you might have done in his place, out there in the desert. We went to collect him, and if he had come out shooting, we'd have clotheslined him, right? Deleted him cold?"
"Yes."
"So, tactically, he was surrounded, outnumbered, and outgunned. The way we saw it, he either gave up or died."
"We saw it that way. We were wrong."
"Yes, sir. He beat us, straight up, and he did it with the tools he had. I wouldn't have been able to do it. You wouldn't have, either, would you?"
"No."
"You'd have gone down shooting."
"Probably."
"Me, too. And we'd be dead. Ruzhyo isn't. And he's on the loose."
"You admire this guy?"
"Man beats me at my game, oh, yeah. I'm pretty good at what I do; so are you. This guy, he's a formidable enemy, and when push comes to shove, those are the ones we want to face off with, aren't they? You remember the shoot-out in Grozny?"
Howard nodded. He remembered.
"Those revolutionaries we took down weren't in our league. They never had a chance once we decided to scoop 'em up. Screwed, blued, and tattooed. You remarked on your disappointment on the flight home. How… easy it was."
"I remember."
"This ice man we're after, he's not easy. He's in our league — hell, maybe better than we are. Catching him will mean something, won't it?"
"Damn straight."
"It's not a war, John, but it's not a walk in the park. You're pissed off because the guy whipped us, not because he shoots people. The samurai killed a lot more people than the ninja ever did. It's not about body counts. It's about winning."
Howard couldn't stop a small grin. "When did you get to be such a… Taoist philosopher, Julio?"
"I'm about to be a married man with a child. It makes a man think."
"Well, go home and take care of your bride-to-be. You aren't doing any good here."
The warning chime on Howard's computer peeped. A flagged subject.
"Go ahead, computer," Howard said.
"Subject A-1 located," the computer said.
Howard reached for the computer. Damn! They had him!
Well, if they could get there fast enough. Wherever there was.
PART TWO
Base, Angle, Leverage
Chapter 20
Peel stood watching Bascomb-Coombs, once again not having a clue what the man was doing. But BC liked an audience, so he gave him a running commentary.
"Here we go. We insert the passwords we have ras-called from the gatekeepers, thus… and we are in. A straight shot to the inner doors, which we also open with no effort at all…."
He tapped at the keyboard, his fingers dancing like little elves over the thing. He hummed to himself and laughed softly.
"Poor sods. They've rebuilt their walls and made them twice as thick and high as they were, but it doesn't matter, you see. There still must be the pass-through, and no matter how narrow the gates, if you have the keys, you are unstoppable! Voila!"
He turned from the computer screen, all awash with complex lines and clots of numbers and letters that Peel did not comprehend. "How is your desire for power, Terrance?"
"Excuse me?"
Bascomb-Coombs pointed at the keyboard. "Come over here and press this key, and for a few milliseconds you'll be the most powerful man in the world. You will have more of an effect on more people's lives than anyone else on the planet."
Peel stared at the man but didn't move.
"Ah, you hesitate. You must know the dictum, 'With great power comes great responsibility'?"
"Churchill?"
The scientist smiled. "Spider-Man, actually. Sure you don't want to do the deed?"
Peel shook his head.
"Well. Onward and upward, then." He tapped the key once, smartly. "That ought to give the rabble something to think about."
"Commander Michaels?"
Michaels looked up from his desk. He didn't recognize the man standing there, he was just another of the young and clean-cut types running around the place, dressed in a suit and tie. Could have been an FBI agent, save that his clothes were cut better. "Yes?"
"DG Hamilton wanted me to deliver this to you, sir."
He handed a silvery disk about the size of a quarter to Michaels. "If you'll thumbprint here, sir?" He held a print reader out. Michaels pressed his right thumb against a small gray panel on the device. The messenger looked at the readout and was apparently satisfied with the print match. "Thank you, sir."