A
fter his guest took her leave, Greg Shale moved into the room adjacent to his office, which resembled a war room. In the dim light, monitors mounted on the walls surrounded his chair, a swiveling black leather seat that gave him a wide view of the screens. The changing displays showed a variety of information. Some were charts, some maps with gleaming pinpoints, like diamonds scattered on a spider web. Others were interior views of bright and busy rooms with uniformed people in motion. He could see himself in several of the monitors angled just right to catch his reflection. The colors and designs on his reflected view made him look machinelike, a robot with its electronic workings exposed. He was pleased with the look.The bulk of the Mongolian blocked his view. It was startling, like a black cloud passing over the sun out of a sky that had been clear moments before.
“Shit, don’t sneak up on me like that!”
Subedei gave no hint that he’d heard the complaint.
He needs to work on his fucking people skills. If he wasn’t such a damned good bodyguard and trainer, I’d chuck him out.
Greg didn’t mean that. It was a spot of luck that Subedei had come along right after Greg’s former chief bodyguard was killed in a car crash. Being around Subedei somehow gave him a feeling of invincibility he’d never had with a bodyguard before. On the whole, the benefits of having Subedei around seemed more than enough to compensate for the fact that the man wasn’t the kind of deferential employee Greg liked.
Never said one goddamned” sir” to me in all these months, but he takes the personal-protection crap off my mind and lets me concentrate on important things. Like the Winters woman. Damn, she’s hot. The way she moves on the mat…I can hardly wait until I get her moving under me.
“How was she, then? What did you think of her?”
“She’s good, very good.” Subedei’s voice was deep, and there was a catch in it Greg hadn’t heard before.
“Good, but no threat to us,” Subedei continued. “You can forget about that and just enjoy her.”
“Just what I wanted to hear. If you want her when I’m done with her, go ahead.” His bodyguard didn’t seem to mind Greg’s castoffs, although Greg was sure that supply alone wasn’t enough to satisfy the man’s immense appetite for sex. For a moment he imagined what it would be like to be the powerful Subedei, who was uninhibited by social restraints and took what he wanted, when he wanted it. The thought aroused him.
Not only a bodyguard, but a role model as well.
He decided it was a good time for a little afternoon delight with Fawn, his current personal—and extremely loyal—assistant.
When he looked up from his reverie, Subedei was gone.
Before he could call Fawn, the special phone rang—the one he didn’t dare ignore.
He listened for a minute. “I’ll be right there.”
No longer in the mood for a romp with Fawn, he headed to his private parking area. It had just turned into a shitty afternoon. He had to give a progress report to the boss, known to him as B. T., since he had some unpronounceable Chinese name. Mentally, Greg called him Big Turd.
Fucking Chinese are taking over the world.
Greg drove to Morton Arboretum, where he’d met with the boss twice before. Walking through the East Woods, Greg had to admit that the woods were beautiful in October, with the brilliant gold of the sugar maples as a backdrop to a scattering of oaks, with their deep crimson leaves. It was a place where peace could soak into a person’s bones. Greg wasn’t there for peaceful meditation, though.
He rounded a bend in the trail and spotted the old man sitting on a bench, wearing a floppy hat to protect his nearly bald head from the sun. He had binoculars to his eyes, staring into the trees looking for some damn bird or other. It was quite a trick, since at other times Greg got the impression that the old man was blind.
Greg sat down on the bench and neither of them said anything for a few minutes. B. T. finished his observation, put down his binoculars, and made a quick notation in a journal.
“A cerulean warbler. Rare in this area. This little one should have left for South America already.”
Greg shrugged. The man’s voice sounded like paper crumpling, and his body looked as though a good kick to the belly would snap him in half.
Subedei spoke of this man with humility, even a twinge of fear, and Greg couldn’t imagine his bodyguard bowing his head to a weakling. Subedei had once called him Grandfather, but Greg didn’t think there was a literal relationship. It was a respect thing. Taking his bodyguard’s warnings to heart, Greg stayed on his best behavior and refrained from making the smart-ass remarks he might direct at a weak old man. Subedei had warned him not to speak until B. T. asked him a question. He had also hinted that Greg should sit on the ground at the boss’s feet and that he should keep his eyes lowered, but all that was too much. Did his bodyguard think this was the Middle Ages or something?
This is America, and we don’t do that peasant shit.
“The sun is pleasantly warm today,” the old man said.
Does that call for an answer?
Playing it safe, Greg nodded. He noticed that the man’s clothes were summer-thin, and he wore no coat. Greg was wearing a sweater, and a jacket on top of that, against the fall chill in the air.
“I believe you have diverted some of the project’s development funds for your own use in propping up your corporation. Is that true?”
How the hell did he know that?
Greg hesitated. With anyone else, Greg would lie. With B. T., he tried to gauge whether he could get away with it or not.
The man suddenly fixed Greg with eyes as hard as stone, ancient and cruel and supremely confident, and full of utter disregard for human life.
Nope, not blind, unless he could turn it on and off.
Greg shivered as he realized that if anybody were to be broken in half with a kick here, the two bloody pieces lying on the ground would be his own.
Without quite realizing it, he dropped his gaze respectfully to the ground.
“Yes, sir, that’s true.”
“You will remedy the situation immediately.” There was an unspoken and it will never happen again. “Now tell me about your progress.”
Greg told him in detail about the work on Project CESR, and when he was dismissed, he hurried away. His previous meetings with the old man hadn’t made much of an impression, but this time Greg knew exactly where he stood: on shaky ground that could tip him into hell at any time.