Greg Bear - Mariposa

William remembered his last days at the FBI Academy in Quantico, coming into the trainee lounge and watching on TV the Washington state blast that had mortally wounded his father. Rebecca Rose had been there, as well, and survived.

He had met her on that case-and they had joined the group that had traveled to Mecca. Everything seemed to be orbiting around the Middle East yet again.

He didn't like that one bit.

He kept his voice flat. "How is she?"

His tone didn't fool Kunsler. "Light concussion. Cracked ribs. Sprained ankle. I'm delivering her new orders-straight from the president. And not without qualms, even though that will chap Scholes's ass-which is always fun. This mess is getting thick as pea soup. But there's nothing we can do until we retrieve Nabokov."

"Give her my regards," William said.

"Don't be stupid," Kunsler said. "Why should I know you from Adam? You're just a lowly agent slogging along with a losing team. The team that's close to being out of a job."

William looked chagrined.

"What do you know about Little Jamey?" she asked.

"Only what was in the news," he said.

Little Jamey Trues was the son of Reggie Trues, Special Agent in Charge of the El Paso Division of the FBI. He had been arrested and charged with first degree murder in Lion City, Texas. He had shot his best friend, the son of Lion City's mayor, with a small pistol, in the friend's bedroom. Both boys had been thirteen at the time.

The mayor was a good friend of Axel Price.

The shooting had been ruled an accident by both the Texas Rangers and the FBI, but the Lion County coroner's office had declared it premeditated homicide.

A Lion City jury of twelve older white men had convicted Little Jamey and sentenced him to death at the Walls Unit in Huntsville. Everybody in the agency had been shocked by the blatant miscarriage of justice-but were powerless to act. The federal government was on borrowed time in that part of Texas, many said. The U.S. of A. couldn't pay its bills.

Alaska, California, and Idaho were already talking seriously about breaking up into separate economic units-New Republics, they hoped to call themselves. The fate of an agent's adolescent son seemed a trivial lump in the awful stew.

"Bad times in a bad town," William said.

Kunsler jammed her eyebrows together. "Well, some in the Bureau haven't been so philosophical. A few agents and former agents in Washington have unofficially arranged for a cockamamie rescue. A real tour de forcemeat. But bold, I'll say that. If it's carried out, I suspect everyone on the ground will end up dead or paraded around in cages down the streets of Lion City.

"I've sequestered the agent who was planning and directing the rescue. I know most of the others, where they're stationed and what stage they're at-just a couple of days from carrying out the plan. I was on the brink of hauling them in and stripping their credentials too, but now…"

She looked up. "I think we might have a use for Little Jamey Trues. Like to hear more?"

William's heart sank. He had suspected for several months now that Nabokov was actually Fouad Al-Husam. Jane Rowland was part of this investigation-he had known that for some time. And now it seemed Kunsler was about to expand William's role in the operation.

They made up three out of the four agents who had taken part in the Mecca operation.

The fourth was Rebecca Rose.

He did not like revisiting the past. Taking a second look at FBI history had ended up killing his father. And of course it was history that had dragged them to Mecca in the first place.

"Okay," he said. "Where do I fit in?"

Long Beach, California

Nathaniel Trace waited inside his childhood home for the next prostitute to show.

He wanted to learn what level of self-control he possessed at this point in his unfolding. That was how he thought of it now; unfolding, pushing through the pupa case and spreading his wings, pumping them until they were broad and stiff, letting them set in the dry air, ready for flight.

Plain to see, the first prostitute-a skinny brunette with a wide, pretty smile and haunted eyes-had been abused since childhood. Nathaniel found he could not engage the proper responses with someone who had such a history. The hooker's counter to his lack of enthusiasm was sadly professional. She suggested an interesting catalog of circumstances and techniques, but Nathaniel had fixated on the fact that she could not-or deliberately would not-share pleasure. Working in the sex trade had made her numb.

It wasn't that professionals rarely enjoyed their work. He recognized her symptoms. She had PTSD.

He tipped her a thousand dollars and she left the house without a backward glance.

Nathaniel would not allow himself to fly if he thought he didn't have the necessary control. Was he like a child, working to acquire new instincts and training-or a passionless demon waiting to explode?

As far as he was concerned, that first encounter had taught him only part of what he needed to know. It was not that he cared about those around him. He did not even much care what happened to himself. But he had set his own ground rules early on, when he realized what he was becoming:

A building without walls. A mountain without rocks. A storm without winds. A drunkboat without a compass.

So far he had not exhibited the psychopathic tendencies Jerry Lee had spoken of, but that did not mean they weren't there. The difficult thing about his present situation was he could not predict his own behavior.

And so he would try one more time.

The house stood on a quiet street in a century-old neighborhood in Long Beach, California. There had been a few changes since his boyhood, but the lineaments were the same. His parents had died in a car crash on their way to ski at Big Bear. The house had been sold and he had moved to Costa Mesa to live with his aunt in a dingy, cramped apartment.

A year ago, while recovering in Baltimore, he had purchased the house outright from its then-owner, without knowing why. The house's history carried no sentiment for him but now that he was here he could, if he wished, unroll his childhood like a spool of film, shining on each frame a precision torch that had little to do with real human needs… See it all in full motion and vivid color, but spotty sound.

The house was teaching him how to access his past more efficiently.

Late last night, he had replayed the convention center blast and tried to rewind his emotions. That triggered another change. Deep ennui rolled in. He cared about nothing. This was probably a delayed effect of smoke and fire and bodies-so much larger than the atrocity in Arabia Deserta, though this time he had not been badly hurt-just a few scratches.

Even so, he could almost feel Mariposa working to separate his echoing emotions into manageable chunks.

Though wide awake, he had hardly moved for several hours. Somewhere in that void was when the Quiet Man called and left a message on his EPR cell.

Coming out of fugue just before dawn, he idly keyed in his ID and retrieved the message. The Quiet Man's voice was steady. "Dr. Plover says he gave you the materials. You invited the others, and that upset the doctor-but it's probably for the best. Be careful with those aliases. They may be using parts of Jones to track us. We have nine days before MSARC kicks in. They already know where I am, of course. Jones will not tell me who was responsible for the convention center bombs, but I suspect he knows-and that means we know. I believe Nick is dead. This is the last time I will call. Good luck, Nathaniel."

Nathaniel shut off the phone and stared through the front window, between the gauze curtains, at the growing light on the quiet street.