Greg Bear - Mariposa

The war was on.

The White House

The president's chief of staff entered the room and sat at the long table across from Alicia Kunsler and beside Daniel Haze.

Rebecca had not met him before. He was a short, unimposing man with small, watchful eyes, pale skin, and a fleshy lower lip. He wore a toupee, she noticed-everyone noticed, it was a standing joke with the press corps. Nevertheless, he had a quiet confidence that showed he did not much care what people thought, or how he looked-though his suit was tailored and his soft reddish-brown loafers fit the current Beltway style-or established it.

Thalia Ripper stood by his side, laying out a series of zip pages. He looked down at them, then said, "Here's all that we've been given-all that's been presented. The president is listening to the Quinn sound file. Because Talos Corporation has been implicated in illegal and possibly treasonous activities, I've taken the precaution of removing their executive protection team and reinstating the Secret Service. Director Haze joins us for that and other reasons. Daniel, what can you tell us about Quinn's death?"

"Cumberland is keeping us out," Haze said. "Justice is pushing hard, but it's possible even some of their people don't want to know the truth. There's a lot of tendrils in law enforcement that lead straight back to Talos."

"Suicide?" the chief of staff asked.

Haze shook his head once, dubious. "He was supposed to be on suicide watch. It's a major cock up. People all over are hiring counsel and updating their résumés."

The chief of staff allowed himself a tired grimace. "Poor bastard. What about Mr. Price?"

Kunsler removed her spex to concentrate on the people in the room. "We await the opportunity to give our report directly to the president," she said.

The chief of staff touched his earpiece and stood abruptly. "Yes, Madam President," he said. "All of us. I understand. We're on our way."

Ripper gathered up the zip pages and followed as he led them through the door. In the windowed hallway outside, Ripper spoke in low tones to the tightly assembled group. "What you're about to see must be kept strictly confidential. The president places her utmost trust in you."

Kunsler glanced at Rebecca, a peculiar look that was at once apprehensive and somehow relieved, as if she were about to share a huge burden.

"We'll be making an announcement in two days… if we have that long," Ripper concluded, before they entered the residence. She dropped her gaze to the floor and squared her shoulders as she opened the door to the president's bedroom.

From the opening wafted unmistakable smells of soap, antiseptic, medicine-a sickroom.

The heat struck them next-in the nineties and humid.

One by one, the chief of staff ushered them through the door, starting with Rebecca.

President Larsen looked up from a four-poster piled high with comforters and blankets. Her cheeks had sunk almost to the bone and the skin on her arms and clavicle appeared parchment-thin. Her veins and arteries stood out like a medical diagram.

"Sorry to put this off for so long," she said, and invited Rebecca closer. The president's labored breath was like a hot tropic breeze.

The change was startling-she looked more dead than alive.

Lion County

Little Jamey hadn't said a word since Kapp had been killed. The truck roared and bounced west along the old frontage road, followed by at least three surveillance birds-and probably soon to be tracked by larger craft, old Reapers or sleek new Condors, equipped with Hellfire missiles or worse.

William swung the truck hard left, then slammed it to a grinding halt in the middle of brush. Dust swirled.

He cleared his throat. "Best to get out here. Where I'm going, you don't want to follow."

Curteze had bitten his tongue on the last big bounce. Blood stained his lower lip. His voice was thick. "We need hostage rescue. They can't just abandon us out here. Someone has to stick their necks out and extract us."

"That isn't going to happen," William said. "We knew this was going to be tough going in."

Curteze glared out the window. "We were doing this for the old FBI. No joke. They owe us."

Dawn was five hours away. No extraction. No HRT. They both knew it.

"Thanks, guys," Jamey said from the backseat. His eyes were puffy, exhausted. "We still got some water, right? I can make El Paso easy."

"They'll track us down and blow us to bits!" Curteze shouted.

"The desert is full of targets-hundreds every day coming north-men, women, children," William said. "They can't track them all. Your best chance begins right here."

Jamey opened his door and got out, then walked around the Tahoe and tapped William's side window. William rolled it down.

"Hell of a ride," the boy said, and they shook hands.

Curteze looked between Jamey and William.

"You're going back to the airport?"

William nodded.

"Right now, the way this shit's going down, they don't care-they won't hesitate to blow you right off the road."

"You're probably right," William said.

Curteze swore and pushed open his door, half falling, half jumping out. He straightened and slammed the door shut. He still had some of Kapp's blood and brains on his sleeve and shoulder.

"Thanks for nothing," he said to William. "Come on, kid," he said to Jamey.

They slunk off through the brush, crouched low.

William swung the Tahoe back around, raising another big cloud of dust. That would look like panic, but also hide the pair in the brush for a few minutes, at least. Maybe the drone trackers would keep their focus on the truck.

Only idiots would jump out in the middle of nowhere.

On one deep bounce, William's head almost hit the roof of the cab. The headliner pressed his hair. Angrily, he swerved right and found the access road the GPS had said was there, back when it was still working: part gravel, part patched asphalt.

A single small car honked and veered into the shoulder as he nearly ran it down.

He roared through a dusty suburb, low flat houses on either side, parked Diesel semis surrounded by weeds. This was within a mile of where he had started. And here, it seemed a good time to talk to himself, just to keep up the illusion of company.

"I'll head to the airport and hope for the best. Planes coming in at all hours. Limos going 24/7," he said. "They won't take that risk."

To this, he answered, "Hell, they'd gladly blow me up in front of everybody, take me out with a pinpoint blast-call it a tactical demonstration.

"Two miles from the airport. There's the highway."

The highway was almost deserted. No line of cars blocked his path. Somehow, he had evaded Price's posse-or the posse had split up, pulled back, not to alarm the incoming guests. A bunch of good ol' boys in pickup trucks, standing up with assault rifles locked and loaded…

Through the dusty windshield, he saw a glint in the high sunlight of the coming dawn: a big drone at about a thousand feet, doing aerobatic loops.

"Fucking angel of death," he said.

William slowed and then gunned the truck up the frontage road. The road joined with an onramp to the highway. There were headlights ahead; at this hour, it had to be either ranch trucks or traffic from the Lion City airport.

A big black limo passed on his left.

He grunted. "An audience," he said, and wiped his mouth. Two more limos and a phalanx of eight or nine shiny black SUVs swooped by.

William could no longer see the high glint. He easily imagined the drone stooping like a hawk, then flinched and almost swerved off the road as a midsize jet roared overhead: a beautiful Citation making its final approach. It sported Arabic markings. The Texans and Saudis had always had a lot in common: deserts, guts, tribes, and oil.