the base of Ransome’s skull. The gesture felt comfortable, felt right. He thumbed back the hammer. That felt even better.
It would be a very, very easy thing to do.
It is the easy things that damn you, not the hard.
Twenty-five years earlier, David Elliot, not entirely sane at the time, stood in the heart of horror and promised God that he would never,
never
, again fire a gun in anger. I will, he prayed, hurt no one, never again,no act of anger, no deed of violence, oh God, I will war no more.…
Now, in the course of a single morning, he had killed two men. It had been easy—easy as it ever was—and quite automatic. He hadn’t felt a thing.
However, now, at just this moment, a pistol in his hand and a worthy target in his sights, he
was
feeling something—feeling a sense of accomplishment, the comfortable emotion of a skilled man who has exercised his skills with perfection. With two fresh deaths on his hands and the perfume of cordite on his fingers, he knew he was at no small risk of feeling fine, quite fine, and feeling better every minute.
Never again, he thought. Never. He’d almost lost. They’d almost won. Now it was happening again. If he let it. But he wouldn’t, he couldn’t, let himself be turned back into the kind of man they once had wanted him to be.
Ransome expected otherwise. Ransome and his people. They’d think they knew what he’d do. Take a civilian hostage or two. Set up an ambush. Build up the body count. Start a firefight. Try to shoot his way out of the building.
Dave smiled grimly. He lifted the pistol’s sights from Ransome’s head, flicked on the safety, uncocked the hammer, and slid the weapon beneath his belt. Although he knew his enemy could not hear him, he spoke to Ransome anyway: “How many people have you got watching the exits, buddy? Twenty? Thirty? More? Whatever the number is, I’m not going to get by them, am I?” Dave glanced down at his trousers, torn and thick with grease. “Nope, I’m a real eye-catcher. Hell, looking the way I do, they’d shoot me on general principle. But I will get out, Ransome. Count on it. Also count on me doing it
my
way, not
your
way. I’d sooner take a gun to my head than do anything
that
way.”
3.
It was dark, warm, cozy, and safe. Nearby, the equipment made a soothing humming sound. The air was a little stale, but not bad. Dave lay on his side, curled comfortably. His stomach was full and he felt like taking a nap. He liked it here.
Always wanted to go crawl back into the womb, didn’t you, pal?
The perfect hiding place. Dave was delighted to find it, and a little surprised. Senterex had long since moved its Management Information Systems department out to suburban New Jersey. He had thought that just about every other company in New York, including the Wall Street brokerages, had done the same. Manhattan office space was too expensive to waste on computer hardware. Besides, programmers are a delicate sort of breed, and more productive when removed from the pressures of city life.
However, at least one New York company hadn’t relocated its computers yet. The outfit was a subsidiary of American Interdyne Worldwide. American Interdyne, perpetrator of one of the 1980s’ last great kamikaze junk bond raids, was operating under the protection of the bankruptcy courts and an especially senile federal judge. Maybe that was why the company still had its computers located on the twelfth floor of a very expensive Park Avenue office tower.
What does space in this joint rent for, anyway? Forty bucks a square foot, plus or minus
.
American Interdyne’s computer room was in the grand old style—weighty with heavy-duty mainframe computers, whirring peripherals, and blinking consoles. Other companies were dismantling their enormous centralized systems empires, replacing banks of balky $15 million IBM behemoths with sleek workstations and high speed client/server networks. American Interdyne had not. Its systems department
It would be a very, very easy thing to do.
It is the easy things that damn you, not the hard.
Twenty-five years earlier, David Elliot, not entirely sane at the time, stood in the heart of horror and promised God that he would never,
never
, again fire a gun in anger. I will, he prayed, hurt no one, never again,no act of anger, no deed of violence, oh God, I will war no more.…
Now, in the course of a single morning, he had killed two men. It had been easy—easy as it ever was—and quite automatic. He hadn’t felt a thing.
However, now, at just this moment, a pistol in his hand and a worthy target in his sights, he
was
feeling something—feeling a sense of accomplishment, the comfortable emotion of a skilled man who has exercised his skills with perfection. With two fresh deaths on his hands and the perfume of cordite on his fingers, he knew he was at no small risk of feeling fine, quite fine, and feeling better every minute.
Never again, he thought. Never. He’d almost lost. They’d almost won. Now it was happening again. If he let it. But he wouldn’t, he couldn’t, let himself be turned back into the kind of man they once had wanted him to be.
Ransome expected otherwise. Ransome and his people. They’d think they knew what he’d do. Take a civilian hostage or two. Set up an ambush. Build up the body count. Start a firefight. Try to shoot his way out of the building.
Dave smiled grimly. He lifted the pistol’s sights from Ransome’s head, flicked on the safety, uncocked the hammer, and slid the weapon beneath his belt. Although he knew his enemy could not hear him, he spoke to Ransome anyway: “How many people have you got watching the exits, buddy? Twenty? Thirty? More? Whatever the number is, I’m not going to get by them, am I?” Dave glanced down at his trousers, torn and thick with grease. “Nope, I’m a real eye-catcher. Hell, looking the way I do, they’d shoot me on general principle. But I will get out, Ransome. Count on it. Also count on me doing it
my
way, not
your
way. I’d sooner take a gun to my head than do anything
that
way.”
3.
It was dark, warm, cozy, and safe. Nearby, the equipment made a soothing humming sound. The air was a little stale, but not bad. Dave lay on his side, curled comfortably. His stomach was full and he felt like taking a nap. He liked it here.
Always wanted to go crawl back into the womb, didn’t you, pal?
The perfect hiding place. Dave was delighted to find it, and a little surprised. Senterex had long since moved its Management Information Systems department out to suburban New Jersey. He had thought that just about every other company in New York, including the Wall Street brokerages, had done the same. Manhattan office space was too expensive to waste on computer hardware. Besides, programmers are a delicate sort of breed, and more productive when removed from the pressures of city life.
However, at least one New York company hadn’t relocated its computers yet. The outfit was a subsidiary of American Interdyne Worldwide. American Interdyne, perpetrator of one of the 1980s’ last great kamikaze junk bond raids, was operating under the protection of the bankruptcy courts and an especially senile federal judge. Maybe that was why the company still had its computers located on the twelfth floor of a very expensive Park Avenue office tower.
What does space in this joint rent for, anyway? Forty bucks a square foot, plus or minus
.
American Interdyne’s computer room was in the grand old style—weighty with heavy-duty mainframe computers, whirring peripherals, and blinking consoles. Other companies were dismantling their enormous centralized systems empires, replacing banks of balky $15 million IBM behemoths with sleek workstations and high speed client/server networks. American Interdyne had not. Its systems department
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