You win, Achilles. I don't think I've got you figured out. But I've learned how to play one lousy string. That's something.
I also knocked you onto the floor, beat the goffno out of you, kicked you in your little kintamas, and made you think you liked it. Kill me tomorrow or whenever you want-my shoe going into your face, you can't take that away from me.
In the morning, Petra was pleased to find that she was still alive, considering what she had done the night before. Her head ached, her ribs were sore, but nothing was broken.
And she was starving. She had missed dinner the night before, and perhaps there was something about beating up her jailer that made her especially hungry. She didn't usually eat breakfast, so she had no accustomed place to sit. At other meals, she sat by herself, and others, respecting her solitude or fearing Achilles' displeasure, did not sit with her.
But today, on impulse, she took her tray to a table that had only a couple of empty spots. The conversation grew quiet when she first sat down, and a few people greeted her. She smiled back at them, but then concentrated on her food. Their conversation resumed.
"There's no way she got off the base."
"So she's still here."
"Unless someone took her."
"Maybe it's a special assignment or something."
"Sayagi says he thinks she's dead."
A chill ran through Petra's body.
"Who?" she asked.
The others glanced at her, but then glanced away. Finally one of them said, "Virlomi."
Virlomi was gone. And no one knew where she was.
He killed her. He said he would, and he did. The only thing I gained by what I did last night was that he didn't do it in front of me.
I can't stand this. I'm done. My life is not worth living. To be his captive, to have him kill anyone who tries to help me in any way...
No one was looking at her. Nor were they talking.
They know Virlomi tried to answer Graff, because she must have said something to Sayagi when she walked over to him yesterday. And now she's gone.
Petra knew she had to eat, no matter how sick at heart she felt, no matter how much she wanted to cry, to run screaming from the room, to fall on the floor and beg their forgiveness for ... for what? For being alive when Virlomi was dead.
She finished all she could bear to eat, and left the mess hall.
But as she walked through the corridors to the room where they all worked, she realized: Achilles would not have killed her like this. There was no point in killing her if the others didn't get to see her arrested and taken away. It wouldn't do what he needed it to do, if she just disappeared in the night.
At the same time, if she had escaped, he couldn't announce it. That would be even worse. So he would simply remain silent, and leave the impression with everyone that she was probably dead.
Petra imagined Virlomi walking boldly out of the building, her sheer bravado carrying the day. Or perhaps, dressed as one of the women who cleaned floors and windows, she had slipped out unnoticed. Or had she climbed a wall, or run a minefield? Petra didn't even know what the perimeter looked like, or how closely guarded it might be. She had never been given a tour. Wishful thinking, that's all this is, she told herself as she sat down to the day's work. Virlomi is dead, and Achilles is simply waiting to announce it, to make us all suffer from not knowing.
But as the day wore on, and Achilles did not appear, Petra began to believe that perhaps she had gotten away. Maybe Achilles was staying away because he didn't want anyone speculating about any visible bruises he might have. Or maybe he's having some scrotal problems and he's having some doctor check him out-though heaven help him if Achilles decided that having a doctor handle his injured testes was worthy of the death penalty.
Maybe he was staying away because Virlomi was gone and Achilles did not want them to see him frustrated and helpless. When he caught her and could drag her into the room and shoot her dead in front of them, then he could face them.
And as long as that didn't happen, there was a chance Virlomi was alive.
Stay that way, my friend. Run far and don't pause for anything. Cross some border, find some refuge, swim to Sri Lanka, fly to the moon. Find some miracle, Virlomi, and live.
MURDER
To:Graff%pilgrimage@colmin.gov
From:Carlotta%agape@vatican.net/
orders/sisters/ind
Re: Please forward
The attached file is encrypted. Please wait twelve hours after the time of sending and if you don't hear from me, forward it to Bean. He'll know the key.
It took less than four hours to secure and inspect the entire high command base in Bangkok. Computer experts would be probing to try to find out whom it was that Naresuan had been communicating with outside, and whether he was in fact involved with a foreign power or this gambit was a private venture. When Suriyawong's work with the Prime Minister was finished, he came alone to the barracks where Bean was waiting.
Most of Bean's soldiers had already returned, and Bean had sent most of them to bed. He still watched the news in a desultory fashionnothing new was being said, so he was interested only in seeing how the talking heads were spinning it. In Thailand, everything was charged with patriotic fervor. Abroad, of course, it was a different story. All the Common broadcasts were taking a more skeptical view that Indian operatives had really made the assassination attempt.
"Why would India want to provoke Thai entry into the war?"
"They know Thailand will come in eventually whether Burma asks them or not. So they felt they had to deprive Thailand of its best Battle School graduate."
"Is one child so dangerous?"
"Maybe you should ask the Formics. If you can find any."
And on and on, everyone trying to appear smart-or at least smarter than the Indian and Thai governments, which was the game the media always played. What mattered to Bean was how this would affect Peter. Was there any mention of the possibility that Achilles was running the show in India? Not a breath. Anything yet about Pakistani troop movements near Iran? The "Bangkok bombing" had driven that slow-moving story off the air. Nobody was giving this any global implications. As long as the I.F. was there to keep the nukes from flying, it was still just politics as usual in south Asia.
Except it wasn't. Everybody was so busy trying to look wise and unsurprised that nobody was standing up and screaming that this whole set of events was completely different from anything that had gone before. The most populous nation in the world has dared to turn its back on a two-hundred-year-old enemy and invade the small, weak country to its east. Now India was attacking Thailand. What did that mean? What was India's goal? What possible benefit could there be?
Why weren't they talking about these things?
"Well," said Suriyawong, "I don't think I'm going to go to sleep very soon."
"Everything all cleaned up?"
"More like everybody who worked closely with the Chakri has been sent home and put under house arrest while the investigation continues."
"That means the entire high command."
"Not really," said Suriyawong. "The best field commanders are out in the field. Commanding. One of them will be brought in as acting Chakri."
"They should give it to you."
"They should, but they won't. Aren't you just a little hungry?"
"It's late."
"This is Bangkok."
"Well, not really," said Bean. "This is a military base."
"When is your friend's flight due in?"
"Morning. Just after dawn."
"Ouch. She's going to be out of sorts. You going to meet her at the airport?"
"I didn't think about it."
"Let's go get dinner," said Suriyawong. "Officers do it all the time. We can take a couple of strike force soldiers with us to make sure we don't get hassled for being children."
"Achilles isn't going to give up on killing me."
"Us. He aimed at us this time."