Greg Bear - Mariposa

"This way, gentlemen," the servant said, and led the pair through a double door into an adjacent dining room.

"The prince didn't recognize you," Price said. "Odd-since he's put a rich price on your head-in secret, of course. I thought I'd bring you up to date on a number of matters we discussed earlier. It seems our kidnapping situation has resolved itself. Everyone's dead. Blown right off the airport road."

Schmitz and the Haitians walked beside and behind Fouad as Price led them down another hallway, yet another part of his maze. "Nobody's happy with the way that turned out, but the feds took the situation out of our hands."

Price opened the door to an interior room about ten feet square, richly paneled in dark wood, with a huge gleaming vault safe mounted in the rear wall. Antique prints of butterflies were illuminated by gently glowing ceiling spots-exquisite dabs of blue, green and red. The room smelled of lemon oil and something Fouad couldn't quite identify-musty and repellent.

Price spun the combination, turned the vault wheel, and swung the steel door aside.

"My pride and joy-outside my family, of course. I do my best thinking here. Come on in."

The thick vault door wafted another sickly wave of odor-camphor laid over the ancient decay of myriads of tiny lives.

The vault was bigger than many houses, filled wall to ceiling with beautiful wooden cases fronted by nearly invisible glass. In the cases reposed tens of thousands of butterflies, arranged not in scientific order, but according to size and then color-dead but vibrant rows sweeping from duns and browns to one side, through reds, blues, and greens, to case after case of shining white.

Price chuckled at Fouad's wrinkled nose.

"Some of my contacts in Washington have penetrated your veil, if not your actual plan, Mr. Al-Husam. But I'm going to take one last swing at conversion. After all, my culture, your culture, we have a lot in common. My country has been occupied for a hundred and sixty years. Oh, we pretend we're used to it-we're polite to guests, and we're natural patriots. We even send our boys to die for the cause of the occupiers-because we share temporary needs and goals, not because we truly belong.

"Ask why all the fuss about the second amendment and a well-regulated militia-well, it was never about keeping arms to fight foreign invaders. It was about taking up arms against the government. That's our instinct. We hate government, any government, our own most of all. Our politics has always been guerrilla politics-fast and dirty. Best to lie low and always be ready to move. Maybe that's you, too.

"It was inevitable, after a few rocky decades, that the Islamic world and my people would find common ground and make alliances. We're both highly religious-both, warrior cultures. We both kept slaves. It was our due. Then-the world changed. Now I'm going to help set it right.

"That's what's happening out there now. We're celebrating a new relationship, a new world. Your people-well, they'd like nothing better than to be rid of both the westerners and the Jews. Real thorns in their sides. So I will no longer support Israel-that's that. Your people-"

"My people are diverse," Fouad said.

Price leaned back into the far corner of the vault, and folded his arms. "Your daddy told his bosses over and over again they were screwing up. That's why he never advanced much in the CIA. Always a foot soldier. Have you been candid with your bosses?"

"On occasion," Fouad said.

"I doubt it," Price said. "You've never told them the truth. The kafir world itches your hide like a dug-in tick. Push out the west and you can find your own maturity-whether it's the Caliphate or something else entirely, I don't care. Once the Jews are out of Jerusalem and the Middle East, our dispute will be over. Your people will have enough on their plates to occupy them for generations to come."

"I am a citizen of this country," Fouad said. "My patriotism is not a shallow thing. Perhaps you can no more speak for your people than that Wahhabi can speak for all Muslims."

"That Wahhabi, as you call him-though I wouldn't use that slur to his face-that very fine Saudi gentleman doesn't know who you are. All he has is a few fuzzy pictures taken in Mecca, of all places. You, in the company of non-Muslims, killing the faithful by calling down fire from heaven. But if I put a name to those fuzzy pictures, you'll make a dandy gift, tied up with a nice big ribbon, for any would-be protector of the sacred cities. Unless…"

Fouad could no longer tolerate the smell in the vault. He stepped back, chains rustling, and bumped up against Schmitz, who stood with his pistol drawn-a formidable armored pillar. Fouad guessed the man's weight at 240, all muscle-but ten years older.

"Never," Fouad said.

Price shrugged. He followed Fouad out of the vault and swung the door shut with another cold sigh of insect decay. "Maybe real power is forever out of reach for a cultural half-breed like you. In which case… A rich reward. One hundred million Euros. Truth to tell, I'd love to stick a pin through a true-blue federal morpho."

The vault locked and the combination reset.

"The next few hours are going to be impressive," Price said. "Pomp and circumstance."

Schmitz grabbed Fouad with two strong hands. The Haitians stood by in case Fouad struggled, but he was quiet, watchful, measuring with spread hands and rapid flicks of his eyes.

He slowly increased the tension on the chain.

Eighty centimeters from cuffs to leg irons.

A gift-for the right moment.

"From now on, sensible, moral people have little to fear," Price said, his blue eyes like hot little jewels masked in shadow. "Immoral people-that's a different story. They should run and hide. We're coming for them-and we've got the goods."

Over Lion County

Rebecca felt her ears pop.

The spiral grew tighter, until the plane banked almost on wingtip. The dry scrub and flat desert around Lion City spread below the little window beside her seat: grainy and tawny, too sharply detailed, like a mold-spotted pelt. Trails and road tracks cut long, skinny scars on the land. The boundaries of the window soothed her eyes-she did not have to look at everything all at once.

The weapons officer wedged and huffed his way forward in the tilted cabin. He carried a remote trigger-a small black wand with a square display. "Bright number one away at three thousand meters," he said. "It'll descend to a thousand, then inflate and maintain. Next two are on auto. Got any electronics you didn't declare back at the airport? I mean anything. This is going to be a wide-spectrum pulse."

Kunsler, across the narrow aisle, shook her head. Rebecca did the same. Haze did not dignify the question with an answer, simply held up his bandaged arms.

The pilot spoke over the intercom. "Blackouts starting in the northwest. Homeland Security is calling international Code Red. Not our work, of course-must be Price's snipers taking out their first power stations-but it fits our needs. Command is out to all military and civilian aviation-ground your planes.

"There's a Gulfstream G950 requesting clearance at JPB, last one in the air. I count twenty-three fancy birds already on the apron-maybe one is hard. The rest are about to become junk."

The weapons officer addressed the cabin. "Bright in five minutes. Sit inboard-fold your arms, don't lean against the cabin walls, and keep your feet on the rests provided."

He took his own seat and leaned over to look back at Kunsler and Rebecca. "The town east of us will suck up a pretty big dose," he said. "Anything within a hundred miles-cars, trucks, UAVs-is going to sizzle and stall. Discharge is minimal-like really bad static-not deadly unless you're holding a cable or standing on a rail line. But lots of people have MedAug these days-"