Quaid was separated from the others, made to stand apart while Blake Leathersby bullied Durwood with his Webley break-top, and Thérèse Laurent cruelly ziptied the wrists of Pomeroy, Piper, and Molly. Fabienne presided over all with a slim handgun, whose laser sight zagged from one captive to the next.

Sue-Ann lay on her side, out. She'd suffered another kick from Leathersby and had fallen against the canvas bag the mercenary had ripped off Durwood's shoulder and tossed aside.

Quaid was the only one not restrained or incapacitated. He'd been allowed to stand unbound in the limestone hall, loose between the two groups.

Why?

Fabienne took the keychain drive from Leathersby.

"It was misguided to keep the sourcecode intact—even if only here, in the Great Safe." She turned to Thérèse Laurent. "See to it every copy, anywhere in the world, is destroyed."

The platinum blond nodded, finishing Molly's wrists with a scowl.

Piper said, "It's not reversible anyway. I looked. Any data that's diseased gonna stay diseased. That street's one way."

Fabienne considered the hacker for a long, taut moment.

"You lie," the heiress said. "Perhaps only you in the world could craft the antidote—but craft it you could. We won't take the chance in any case."

She instructed Leathersby and Laurent to corral the others into a small area with a low overhang, which Durwood had to crouch to fit underneath. Leathersby helped him along with a shove. Durwood tolerated this, but when the Brit reared back to kick Sue-Ann again, he clipped the man's heel and sent him sprawling.

"I'm through being messed with!" Leathersby roared, scrambling to his feet, righting his aim. "Too many bloody years chasing you around the goat pen, Jones. It's time you met your maker."

Durwood was on his knees. "If that's His plan, okay. Maybelle's waiting."

As the mercenary smirked and tried to think up a comeback, Quaid wondered why he remained free. He'd learned in many years dealing with the Rivards—as both a client and adversary—that nothing was ever accidental.

Now Fabienne did clarify. "Mr. Rafferty, you remain an open issue. Your skills would be of use to me. Your diplomacy. Your contacts among the American elites. There is still water to be carried in establishing the new world order—and should you submit to me, you may be allowed to carry some."

She licked her crimson lips.

"What the—?" Piper said. "How's he get a chance to switch? I got skills, too, you just said."

Fabienne shook her head slowly. "You are not the child who joined the Blind Mice. You have changed—and not in a manner that suits the goals of myself and Rivard LLC."

She approached Quaid with swerving steps, then laid the tip of one finger atop his belt buckle. "Mr. Rafferty is a man. Men do not change. He has always had a, eh, how would one say en anglais? A 'moral flexibility.' I know the man's character. I have worked with him—more than Mr. Oak-Jones is aware."

Her voice was thick with gloating, with power, with lust. Quaid felt it in the pits of his palms. A wedge had torn away from Fabienne's dress, exposing her leg to the hollow of her pelvic bone.

"Besides," she continued, dragging her fingers through Quaid's wavy hair. "Davos deserves an encore."

Molly McGill's eyes stormed over at this.

Noticing, Fabienne said, "Mr. Rafferty didn't mention our night together at Hotel Zauberberg?" She batted her eyelashes innocently. "It's true we've had longer encounters. Bucharest comes to mind, where we discovered our mutual affinity for exploring that oft-neglected part of the anatomy..."

As she trailed off dreamily, the finger on Quaid's belt buckle moved lower.

To clear his mind, Quaid looked to Durwood and tried focusing on tactics. What's our play? How do we wriggle out of this?

A new alarm had joined the one that'd been bleating for the last half hour. Deeper pitched and louder.

He asked Fabienne, "Shouldn't you be taking action vis-à-vis all these alarms? It sounds like you've got half the German Luftwaffe incoming."

Fabienne gave a bored sneer. "It is just American Dynamics. Jim Steed and his conquest fantasies."

"A fantasy backed by a hundred million dollars of weapons is nothing to sneeze at. There wouldn't happen to be a designated bunker we should be sheltering in, would there?"

Quaid tried inching away, but Fabienne tugged him back by a belt loop.

"Roche Rivard is impenetrable," she said. "We could ride out Armageddon here. Steed's hapless pilots will be lucky to strafe us with a single round."

Yes, Quaid thought, but what if that single round finds the inner shaft?

Molly spoke out, "I don't know where your parents failed, what they did to you. I suppose Henri wasn't around, but your mother—or the nannies she hired, whomever—must've made sent some tragically wrong signals."

Quaid thought he saw an angry clench come into Fabienne's jaw, but in a second it was gone.

"Yes, that's right, everything must trace back to childhood. To one's parenting. Even for you"—Fabienne gestured with the tip of a slender gun—"parenting has enlarged your breasts, oui? Perhaps this is why Mr. Rafferty returns to you occasionally when he's unable to find a more exciting option?"

McGill's eyes tried to storm again, but now they were puddles more than thunder.

Fabienne muttered, "I'm only twenty-three, of course, but I have heard childbirth enlarges other parts too. It loosens and stretches out—"

Quaid said, "That's enough."

Fabienne turned back to him and said so none could hear, "Is it?"

Then did a thing with her hand that nearly made Quaid blow.

She kept whispering, "Dying here is pointless. Even if your ultimate aim is to defeat my agenda, isn't living the better choice? Join me now, accept the lifeline. The future may hold anything, it may hold nothing. Only by getting there can you find out."

Quaid had a knack himself for parroting another's thoughts back to them persuasively. Now Fabienne was doing the same to him.

What benefit was there in going down with the ship? If his whole squad suddenly ceased to exist, what chance did the world have?

Piper Jackson wouldn't be around to engineer a data antidote, but if he—Quaid—knew of sourcecode's existence, he could keep hope alive. He could stick close to Fabienne and win her trust. Tease out all the company's darkest secrets.

After a good deal of thought, Quaid said, "I'll do it, I'll join you. On one condition."

Fabienne's hand froze how it was.

He said, "Keep them alive. You spent a fortune building that oubliette so use it. Put 'em in the deepest, darkest cell you've got. Throw away the key if you like."

She turned languidly and considered her captives. Thérèse Laurent growled impatiently.

"Non," Fabienne decided. "I do not believe you can reach your full potential with Rivard LLC so long as Mr. Oak-Jones lives. Or Ms. McGill, who is such a pathetic figure and magnet for your sympathies. They can only die."

As Fabienne leaned her exposed thigh into Quaid's zipper, he waged a raging fight against himself—in his mind, in his body. Everywhere.

He groped for a way to split the difference, drawing on his adroit politician's logic. Could he accept Fabienne's offer, then intervene before the killings? Unlikely. How about if he offered to commit the killings himself as a way to prove his fealty?

Possible. But very long odds.

As he was considering, deciding if this whole line of reasoning was clever or cowardly, Sue-Ann roused. The geriatric dog struggled up, favoring one side badly. Her paws gave out as soon as they touched the translucent surface.

She kept fighting. Her milky eyes found Quaid's, and held them. Her cataracts made it hard to say for certain, but he wouldn't sworn he saw judgment there.

He would've sworn he saw contempt.

—

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