firelight. Pine logs hissed and popped in the stone hearth. The air around him was troubled by the almost maniacal complexity of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor, Op. 30 , and yet the man in the chair found the music deeply soothing. It was like sailing through the eye of a hurricane—chaos all around and yet deep inside there was perfect stillness. And with stillness came clarity.
A glass of wine sat forgotten on the table beside his chair.
The man reclined in the chair, fingers steepled, eyes narrowed, lips pursed as he studied the images that played out on the flatscreen monitor that filled most of one wall. He watched with professional interest as a Phantom Ray veered off course and slammed its eighteen and a half tons into a General Atomics Avenger. Both drones exploded in a massive fireball and fell onto the desert floor far below. Unmanned tanks swung their turrets and laid down continuous fire at fast attack vehicles. Machine guns in remote controlled Black Hawks turned their guns on other helos flying in attack formation. All of it within seconds, all of it in a beautifully coordinated ballet of self-immolation and mutual destruction.
When the last of the guns fell silent, the man in the chair took a deep breath and let it out through his nostrils, puffing like a contented dragon. In the upper left corner of the screen a smaller pop-up screen showed the face of a beautiful woman with long brunette hair and glasses that hung around her neck on a silver chain.
“This completes our demonstration, sir,” she said. Her voice trembled and she was clearly nervous. No, almost certainly afraid. Although she did not know the name, or even the code name of the man to whom she spoke, she knew enough about who he was and what he represented to be properly terrified. That pleased the man; it was as it should be.
The woman stared at him―or at the screen saver of a coiled snake, which was all that she would ever see of him―with expectation in her eyes. Was she waiting for praise?
Probably. He smiled. The next ice age would come and go before he would spoon out praise to a vendor . And a potential vendor at that.
“What is your asking price?” he said. There was at least a fragment of tacit approval in that question. Let that be enough for her. Let her suck what juice there was out of that.
But she was undeterred. She leaned toward the camera, double vertical lines forming between her brows. “Price is secondary,” she said. “Your assurance is paramount.”
“Of course,” he replied with only the barest hesitation, “and you have it. I respect and endorse your ideals. Ending global conflict is our shared goal. How did Prospero himself phrase it? ‘When no human hand touches a weapon of war, then war will not touch human hearts.’ Elegantly phrased. Much better than my own clumsy ‘Wage a war to end all wars.’ So…rest assured that I will always bear in mind that this is the cornerstone of any arrangement between us.”
The woman hesitated for a moment, then nodded.
“Now,” the man said, “I believe we were discussing price—?”
The woman had enough grace and good taste not to speak the number. Instead she looked down and tapped some keys. A price appeared in a discreet corner of the screen. There were a lot of zeroes. Some might say an absurd amount.
The man in the chair considered the price.
“I’ll let you know,” he said, and before she could say anything he disconnected the call.
He sat in silence for a thoughtful few moments and then turned his head ever so slightly to the other small pop-up screen.
“You may comment,” he said.
“That bonnie lass and her auld―and, I might add, quite daft―Frankenstein boyfriend are trying to rob ye blind, and ye damn well know it,” snapped a slender man wearing an ermine-trimmed robe. He wore a mask of polished silver through which intelligent, calculating eyes stared out.
“Is that your professional assessment of the
A glass of wine sat forgotten on the table beside his chair.
The man reclined in the chair, fingers steepled, eyes narrowed, lips pursed as he studied the images that played out on the flatscreen monitor that filled most of one wall. He watched with professional interest as a Phantom Ray veered off course and slammed its eighteen and a half tons into a General Atomics Avenger. Both drones exploded in a massive fireball and fell onto the desert floor far below. Unmanned tanks swung their turrets and laid down continuous fire at fast attack vehicles. Machine guns in remote controlled Black Hawks turned their guns on other helos flying in attack formation. All of it within seconds, all of it in a beautifully coordinated ballet of self-immolation and mutual destruction.
When the last of the guns fell silent, the man in the chair took a deep breath and let it out through his nostrils, puffing like a contented dragon. In the upper left corner of the screen a smaller pop-up screen showed the face of a beautiful woman with long brunette hair and glasses that hung around her neck on a silver chain.
“This completes our demonstration, sir,” she said. Her voice trembled and she was clearly nervous. No, almost certainly afraid. Although she did not know the name, or even the code name of the man to whom she spoke, she knew enough about who he was and what he represented to be properly terrified. That pleased the man; it was as it should be.
The woman stared at him―or at the screen saver of a coiled snake, which was all that she would ever see of him―with expectation in her eyes. Was she waiting for praise?
Probably. He smiled. The next ice age would come and go before he would spoon out praise to a vendor . And a potential vendor at that.
“What is your asking price?” he said. There was at least a fragment of tacit approval in that question. Let that be enough for her. Let her suck what juice there was out of that.
But she was undeterred. She leaned toward the camera, double vertical lines forming between her brows. “Price is secondary,” she said. “Your assurance is paramount.”
“Of course,” he replied with only the barest hesitation, “and you have it. I respect and endorse your ideals. Ending global conflict is our shared goal. How did Prospero himself phrase it? ‘When no human hand touches a weapon of war, then war will not touch human hearts.’ Elegantly phrased. Much better than my own clumsy ‘Wage a war to end all wars.’ So…rest assured that I will always bear in mind that this is the cornerstone of any arrangement between us.”
The woman hesitated for a moment, then nodded.
“Now,” the man said, “I believe we were discussing price—?”
The woman had enough grace and good taste not to speak the number. Instead she looked down and tapped some keys. A price appeared in a discreet corner of the screen. There were a lot of zeroes. Some might say an absurd amount.
The man in the chair considered the price.
“I’ll let you know,” he said, and before she could say anything he disconnected the call.
He sat in silence for a thoughtful few moments and then turned his head ever so slightly to the other small pop-up screen.
“You may comment,” he said.
“That bonnie lass and her auld―and, I might add, quite daft―Frankenstein boyfriend are trying to rob ye blind, and ye damn well know it,” snapped a slender man wearing an ermine-trimmed robe. He wore a mask of polished silver through which intelligent, calculating eyes stared out.
“Is that your professional assessment of the
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