Greg Bear - Mariposa

Within the tube was a small steel lancet.

"We were not informed what that is for," he said. "But it all fits in here." He reached down and partially uncoiled the snake, then squeezed its middle. A small hatch popped open, giving a glimpse of gleaming steel ribs and wires. He placed the tube inside the snake, then closed the hatch.

"The snake has hi-res terrain mapping tied in with augmented GPS, and in this model, face and voice recognition. Pretty good software, if I say so," Q boasted.

"We all say so," Johnny Walker affirmed.

"Within sight of a targeted individual-I mean, the intended individual-it will make an audible announcement and open its hatch. There is no self-destruct mechanism-we're delivering on short notice. If its mission is not completed, there's a risk that some one smarter than us will draw some or other conclusion by examining its payload-though we ourselves have yet to come up with a believable hypothesis."

"Thank you," Kunsler said. "Tell your secret masters we're appreciative, and will provide all the relevant details, should our mission prove a success."

"One more thing," Johnny Walker said. He pulled a cable from the box. "Keep this plugged into a cigarette lighter for half an hour before you release."

"The fuel cell option has been delayed," Wild Turkey said, with a hangdog expression. "My bad. It turns on like this…"

He demonstrated. The snake twitched and coiled, then raised its head with a hiss and shake of its tail. Kunsler leaped back about a foot and gave a convulsive shudder.

"Very convincing," she said as the snake performed an S-curve crawl around the table. "But sidewinders are Sonoran desert, not west Texas."

"As I said, short notice," Q said.

Washington D.C.

The Eisenhower Executive Office Building was by any definition a stately pile, a great angular staggered front rising to an elaborate Mansard roof. With marble floors, cast-iron columns, and brass details, the EEOB looked Baroque to Rebecca, who knew from architecture, but the Marine guard-a short, muscular woman with the most beautiful, sympathetic eyes-proudly told her it was actually French Second Empire. Whatever, it was crammed with over five hundred and fifty rooms and two miles of hallways-a warren of office spaces woven around restored ceremonial rooms and spacious executive suites.

The EEOB housed the solar plexus of executive government and its proximity to the White House had made it a desirable stack of real estate for almost a hundred and forty years. It also housed the vice president's offices, and a weary-looking quartet of two marines and two Diplomatic Security agents stood guard by the tape-sealed doors.

All four sets of eyes, sharp as hawks, locked on Rebecca as she walked by.

Tours had been stopped right after the Quinn murders. Nobody wanted to deal with large and curious crowds or the extra publicity of ghoulish souvenir hounds removing chunks of historical ornament. More than twenty such had already been arrested trying to breach the grounds of the Naval Observatory.

Rebecca's escort steered her through the quiet, echoing sadness to a small waiting room furnished with ornate wooden benches and a magazine table. The escort sat across from her, biting her thumb and providing more architectural details

A tall, straight woman with short gray hair and a neat gray pantsuit opened the door, then looked down at her notebook. "You're Rebecca Rose?"

"Yes, ma'am," Rebecca said.

"I'm Thalia Ripper. I used to be the president's campaign manager. Now I help with legal and other matters-call it damage control. We have a desk and secure terminal for you in an annex near the vice president's office. The office has been processed and will be made available to you. A lot of boxes are being delivered, more boxes every hour. I have a staff of three waiting to assist, all of the highest integrity and loyalty. If they seem stiff and unhappy, well… you understand. Let's start on a first name basis."

"I understand… Thalia."

"Ripper." Half lidded eyes. "Like a Bond girl."

Rebecca grinned.

Ripper cocked her head and threw back her shoulders. "Used to look like one too."

Rebecca had no difficulty believing that.

Ripper took Rebecca through nearly empty hallways and down a flight of stairs. They peered into the Indian Treaty Room, fancy digs indeed, one corner stacked six feet high with neat white file boxes on carts with soft rubber wheels, not to mar the flooring.

Rebecca's space took up a back room beside the deserted vice president's office.

"This used to be occupied by Quinn's staff," Ripper said. "They handed in their resignations as fast as they could. We all loved Beth-Anne."

The walls were draped with pale gray fabric. The ceiling was hung with similar fabric. Surrounded by this canopy, a small desk supported a flat screen with a virtual keyboard.

"I'll need a big, flat worktable," Rebecca said.

"I'll get one, but I recommend against spreading out documents," Ripper said. "We haven't had time to blind the room. There was a restoration project in the EEOB three years ago. Little things in the paint, you know. A constant problem. Hence the drapes. They're presumed to be effective, but presumption doesn't cut it."

Rebecca leafed through a small pile of papers sitting under an orange cover on the desk: lists of documents denied to the White House by various agencies and departments. "The Bureau won't give us the FBI's vetting docs for Quinn," she noted.

"That was Bureau West's call," Ripper said. "You having issues with the deputy director in Alameda?"

Rebecca shook her head. "No way of knowing."

"We may have copies," Ripper said. "We're still looking."

Rebecca set her teeth and pulled out the barely padded, decades-old visitor's chair, then sat and stretched her leg. "I worked with the AG on a political background check eight years ago," she said.

"The same one who's serving time in Cumberland?"

Rebecca nodded. "With politically sensitive subjects, Office of Intelligence usually got involved. Back then, the info went straight back to the White house. Not anymore, I assume."

"Not anymore," Ripper confirmed.

"OI also exchanged data with CIA. To cover their asses after the torture trials, the CIA liaisons trucked paper dupes of their findings over the river to a warehouse in McLean. They didn't trust the White House not to erase them."

Ripper smiled. "I'll make an inquiry."

Another trolley of boxes arrived as Rebecca continued to run down the list. At least 90 percent of the blocked documents, she was sure, would be available somewhere in a cached blog or government web page.

Within a couple of hours, the small room was half filled with boxes, each packed tight with thousands of sheets of paper: folders, binders, briefing booklets.

Some dated back to 1979.

"The vice president went into the army in 2004," Ripper said, tapping a flat gray box. "These are his official records-fitness reports, Silver Star and Bronze Star commissions, medical and Purple Heart documentation-that sort of thing. I'll leave you to it."

Two staffers showed up on the first day, with another promised soon. Rebecca asked these serious young workers to bring her the first three boxes, by date, from the larger room.

Together, they began working through Quinn's life. Document search and analysis was the sort of labor Rebecca knew was essential, and hated. Worm days, she had called it at the Academy. Bookworm.

At five, before dawn, she was escorted by her assigned Secret Service agent, Roger Baumann-tall, balding, with an oft-broken nose and calm brown spaniel eyes-from the rear of her hotel, a small, comfortable old establishment, empty but for her. Baumann drove her a block and a half to the EEOB in a massive armored Cadillac, to be set loose in the former office of the vice president, rapidly filling with millions of cold, impenetrable words and images describing a life effectively over.