Greg Bear - Mariposa

"Thank you for coming, Fouad."

Fouad nodded but Price wasn't paying attention. The window drew his eyes out to peace and greenness: a controlled, secure domain, like the wilderness of myth.

"I'm embarrassed to have to talk about this," Price said. "A crack team of men has hijacked a high-profile prisoner from our Lion County lockup. So far, they've evaded capture, but we'll have them soon, and then I'm going to face a difficult dilemma." Price swung around. Fouad observed that he was genuinely angry but keeping himself in check. "Looks like the feds have come for Little Jamey Trues. Do you know anything about this?"

"No sir," Fouad said.

Price examined him closely, then glanced at his desktop, where a flat screen showed a schematic of a human figure-red, yellow, and blue blotches spread around limbs, face, hands. Price looked back at the windows. "I have four sons and three daughters. You?"

"No children," Fouad said.

"I can't imagine losing a son. You'd think FBI would teach its kids gun safety."

"A tragedy."

"Murder, actually." Price faced him, eyes mild but somehow, with that cold little smile, even more dangerous. "I also can't imagine having a son strapped down on a couch while a bunch of rednecks pump poison into his veins. I'd rather take him out and shoot him myself. Patria potesta, the Romans called it. Power of the patriarch. Isn't that what should have happened, Mr. Al-Husam? Taking care of our own messes?"

"It is not my place to comment, sir."

"Asymmetric warfare group has done excellent work getting our Haitian boys ready. No small thanks to you and your language courses. We'll be moving about two thousand of them to Arabia Deserta, into Jiddah and Riyadh, in three or four days. They'll join with crack team of Sunni officers… getting ready to subvert Shia guerrilla groups and pass power to a provisional Baathist government. Secular little fascists. Just love Adolf. Mind you, it's all with the covert blessing of key folks in the CIA and the State Department. How's that for irony?"

"Impressive," Fouad said.

"And for that, Talos will get a half percent of gross oil revenues coming out of the Persian Gulf for two years. A tidy bit of cash, even with oil futures dropping. Crazy old world, Fouad. In thirty years, the Middle East might not stack up to a hill of beans, but we'll have had our moment in the sun, we'll get out, and there'll be someplace else that needs fixing."

"No doubt," Fouad said.

"But this Little Jamey mess… I think the old FBI is looking for its own brand of justice. Don't you?"

Fouad said nothing. If Price was speaking the truth, then the complications could be almost too devious to imagine.

Price chuckled. "My God, Fouad, what an expression. You're shut tighter than a virgin's legs. Doesn't anything upset you or amuse you?"

"I am not paid to be amused," Fouad said.

"Well, if either of us were drinking men, I'd say we both need a snort of good Scotch. But we don't have that luxury, do we?"

"No sir."

"Ever thought of building some sort of foundation, having a family? I find strength in my wife and kids. Keeps me humble."

"Do you wish me to be humble?"

Price laughed. "No. But I won't be responsible to Allah for all your sins."

"Just the ones you are paying for," Fouad said.

Price chuckled, then assumed a somber cast, eyes glittering. "Tell Allah not to forget that."

"He is ever present and listens to the heart," Fouad said.

"I think him and my Jesus would actually get along pretty well," Price said. "Don't you?"

"I have no doubt, sir."

"This prisoner hijacking-it's a well-planned operation, as far as it's gone. Whoever carried it off certainly had help from inside the Texas DOC-and from Washington. You used to be FBI. You're the most prominent former agent on our payroll. Some of my security people are pointing fingers. They say you're the inside man.

"But my equipment-such as it is-shows you're telling me the truth. Still, if you have any insight-if you've heard anything, even rumors-I'd appreciate it if you'd pass it along. Could take some heat off the both of us. The mayor's screaming bloody murder, and Huntsville ain't happy, either."

Fouad stepped forward. "I know nothing of this, but I doubt that active-duty agents are involved."

"Well, that's not the sentiment around here." Price shook his head as if dismissing all that as beneath their notice. "We know they're using a truck with a falsified rancher RFID. We know they'll try to cross into New Mexico. They'll realize that route is blocked while they're still a little south of highway 62.

"If you have any way to contact these men-tell them we'll cut them some slack if they turn their prisoner over now. We'll ship them out of Texas, no rough stuff and no questions asked. But we keep Little Jamey, of course."

Another couple of seconds. The sound of grass whispering beneath the office windows.

"If this isn't why you're here, then I've got a real puzzle, my friend," Price said. "I've also got my instincts. I'm going to come down on one side or another, right here. Right now." He lifted his finger, dropped it to the left, then down. "One way or another, you're not being square with me. I just want to know why. I've had programmer trouble recently. Worse, I got some sort of gremlin burrowing into my infranet, but that might not be you-probably isn't, in fact, since a lot of it seems to come from outside. Very clever. Little boy sobbing. I'm thinking Spider/Argus-they do that sort of thing, don't they?"

Fouad lowered his gaze to the desk, the carpet.

Price looked over the display. "Bingo. No ice cups this time. Lots riding on our upcoming meeting. If you're after data-my experts aren't sure where you're hiding it. We've swept your quarters, it's not on your Talos body chips, and you don't have any others.

"You know I could kill you right here, but… you might have some other use, down the road a ways. Tomorrow, maybe. And I still might have something to learn from you. Maybe I can solve two problems at once. I like that approach."

Fouad knew better than to speak. Any protest or defense would be meaningless. It might be best if he just moved in and killed Price here and now. But he would get no closer than a few meters and then he would die, and there would be no point.

Price smiled, observing on his screen the play of Fouad's emotions. "Good boy. You're tensing in all the right places. You could be a bargaining chip if nothing else. Hell, even Little Jamey might have his use. Do we understand each other?"

"Not in the least," Fouad said.

"Get back to your bungalow."

Fouad was about to leave but Price held up his hand, an imperious gesture, accompanied by a dip of his chin and an undershot gaze.

His eyes were steely.

"Before you go, my technicians are going to strip out your chips. All of them. Won't take more than a few minutes. You can't go anywhere around here without them. As for the hijackers, if they don't hand themselves over to my people, the locals will find them. They have no love for federals."

Lion County

The Tahoe had come to a halt on the edge of an irrigation ditch with no water in it.

Water was scarce out here. The "tanks" were mostly empty and of course the cattle were long gone. This was a land of flyaway dirt and dusty, half idled oil wells and gray scrub-and Mexicans flowing north, heading for anywhere but Mexico.

William was thinking about how those Mexicans could be useful.

"Something's jamming the grid," he said. "I'm not even getting GPS."

"That's illegal as hell," Curteze said.

"Let's sue Mr. Price, why don't we?" Kapp said. "What are they waiting for? We're sitting ducks. They know where we are, don't they?"