Joseph Finder - Power Play

He smiled, turned his penetrating gaze away.

"But if I had to guess, it's because I know a lot about our newest airplane."

"The H-880. You an engineer?"

"No, but I think I met one once."

He chuckled.

"I'm the assistant to the guy who's in charge of building the SkyCruiser. I'm like a glorified traffic cop. Actually, forget the 'glorified' part."

"Any of that traffic include money stuff? What do you know about the payments system-how money's moved in and out of the company?"

"I know that my paycheck gets deposited into my bank account every two weeks. That's about it, though. As much as I need to know. I'm the low man on the totem pole here."

He thought for a while. "That doesn't mean what you think."

"What doesn't?"

"'Low man on the totem pole.' The lower part of a totem pole is actually the most important part, see, because it's what most people look at. So it's usually done by the chief carver. He has his apprentices do the top part."

"Thanks," I said. "Now I feel better about it."

"Of course, the other guys don't know about totem poles. So they treat you like shit."

"Not really."

"I see things."

"I guess I don't. Though they do like to rub it in about how much money they have. Fancy restaurants and golf-club memberships and all that."

"That's 'cause they're not men. They're soft."

"Or maybe it's just that they know I just don't come from their world."

"Well, it's pretty obvious you're nothing like them. They're all a bunch of pussies and sissies and cowards."

He was playing me, too, but why?

"Not really. Some of them are serious jocks. Pretty competitive-Alpha Male types. And they all make a lot more money than me."

He hunched forward in his chair, pointing a stern finger. He spoke precisely, as if reciting something he'd memorized. "Someone once said that the great tragedy of this century is that a man can live his entire life without ever knowing for sure if he's a coward or not."

"Huh. Never thought about that."

He glanced at me quickly, decided I wasn't being sarcastic.

"You know what's wrong with the world today, bro? The computers. They're ruining the human race."

"Computers?"

"You ever see elks mate?" Russell said.

"Never had the pleasure."

"Every fall the female elk releases this musk in her urine, see. Tells the bull elks she's ready to mate. The bull elks can smell the musk, and they start fighting each other over the female. Charge at each other, butting heads, locking antlers, making this unbelievable racket, this loud bugling, until one of them gives up, and the winner gets the girl."

"I've seen bar fights like that."

"That's how the females can tell which bulls are the fittest. They mate with the winners. Otherwise, the weak genes get passed on, and the elks are gonna die out. This is how it works in nature."

"Or the corporate world."

"No. That's where you're wrong." The stern lecturer's finger again. "My point. Doesn't work like that with humans anymore. Used to be, a human who was too slow would get eaten by a saber-toothed tiger. Natural selection, right?"

"Didn't the saber-toothed tiger go extinct?"

A darting look of irritation. "These days, everything's upside down. Women don't mate with the better hunter anymore. They marry the rich guys."

"Maybe the rich guys are the better hunters now."

He scowled, but I had a sense that he didn't mind the fencing. Maybe even liked it. "It's like Darwin's law got repealed. Call it the rule of the weak."

"Okay."

"You think women can tell which men are the fittest anymore? They can't. You see a guy who's really cut and buff and wearing a muscle shirt to show it off, and you can figure he spends all his time in the gym, but you know something? Odds are he's a faggot."

"Or a WrestleMania champ."

Another flash of annoyance; I'd gone too far. "I mean, look at these guys." He waved at the wall, at the hostages on the other side. "This country was made by guys like Kit Carson, fighting the Indians with knives and six-shooters. Brave men. But that's all gone now. Now, some pencil-neck geek sitting at a computer can launch a thousand missiles and kill a million people. The world's run by a bunch of fat-ass wimps who only know how to double-click their way to power. Think they should get a Purple Heart for a paper cut."

"I like that."

"Their idea of power is PowerPoint. They got headsets on their heads and their fingers on keyboards and they think they're macho men when they're just half wimp and half machine. Nothing more than sports-drink-gulping, instant-message-sending, mouse-clicking, iPod-listening, web-surfing pussies, and God didn't mean for the likes of them to run this planet on the backs of real men."

A knock at the door, and Verne came in with a mug, which he handed to Russell.

"Finally. Thank you, Verne," Russell said.

"Now they're all bitching and moaning about how they can't sleep on the floor," Verne said, shrugging and twitching.

"Tell 'em this ain't the Mandarin Oriental. Who's complaining-the boss lady?"

"Yeah, her. And some of the guys, too."

"Pussies. All right, look. No reason to keep 'em there, with the hard floor. I want 'em going to sleep. There's a room with a big rug, off the main room. The one with all the stuffed deer heads on the wall. The game room."

"I know it."

"Move 'em all in there. Tell 'em to stretch out and go to sleep. Easier to keep watch."

"Okay."

"Close and lock the windows."

"Gotcha," Verne said, and he left.

He folded his legs, leaned back in his chair. "Aren't you the one who told Verne you were going to gouge out his good eye if he touched your girlfriend?"

"She's not my girlfriend."

He surprised me with a half smile. "You do have balls."

"I just didn't like the way he was talking to her."

"So how come you know about the Glock 18?"

"I did a year in the National Guard after high school." When no college would accept me.

"You a gun nut?"

"No. But my dad sort of was, so some of it rubbed off."

Dad kept trophy hand grenades around the house, a veritable arsenal of unregistered weapons: "Gun nut" didn't really begin to describe him.

"You a good shot?"

"Not bad."

"I'm guessing you're probably a pretty decent shot. The good ones never brag about it. So you got a choice here. You're either gonna be my friend and my helper, or I'm going to have to kill you."

"Let me think about that one."

"Guy like you could go either way." He shook his head. "I still get a vibe off you like you might try to be a hero."

"You don't know me."

"Thing is, I don't hear the fear in your voice. Like maybe there's something missing in you. Or something different."

"That right?"

"Haven't figured it out yet."

"Let me know when you do."

"I'm thinking you might try something reckless. Don't."

"I won't."

"What I got going here is too important to get screwed up by a kid with more testosterone than brains. So don't think you're fooling me. Don't think I'm not onto you. Someone's gonna have to be the first to get shot tonight, just to teach everyone a lesson. Make sure everyone gets it. And I think it might just be you."

If he meant to scare me, it worked. I refused to let him see it, though. I paused for a second or two, then affected a lighthearted tone.

"Your call," I said, "but I'm not sure you want to do that."

"Why not?"

"You think I'm the last guy you can trust? Consider maybe I'm the only one you can trust."

He sat back, folded his arms, narrowed his eyes. "How's that?"

"You said it yourself, Russell. Of all the guys here, I'm the peon. I don't get a bonus. I don't get stock options. I really don't care how much money you take from the company. A million, a billion, it's all the same to me. Doesn't affect me in the slightest. I don't care how much money Hammond makes or loses. I didn't even want to come here in the first place. Most of them didn't want me here."