Legacies

She didn't smile. "Just do it."

Jack loosened the strap, then slid his jeans down to his knees.

Alicia inspected the two-inch vertical slit. "That's a deep one. Did you feel it hit the bone?"

"No. The guy who did it didn't have much oomph left."

"Luckily it runs in line with the muscle fibers of your quadriceps," she said as she began to wrap the thigh with strips of the sheet. She seemed to have slipped fully into her doctor mode. "The femoral artery and nerve are over here, so it missed them completely. Should heal up pretty well, but you will need stitches. ERs have to report stab wounds—"

"I know a guy who doesn't."

"I'm sure you do."

"What's our next step here?" he said as she continued to bind his leg.

"I was hoping you'd know."

"I can take care of the bodies. Haul them off in whatever they arrived in—a dark van, I'll bet—and leave them somewhere."

"Not Thomas," she said. "We owe him."

Jack looked over at Thomas's crumpled, bloody corpse. "Yeah, I guess we do. Okay, so I'll drop the bodies somewhere and place a call, telling the local sheriff or whatever where they can be found. And then let the crime busters have a grand old time figuring out the who, what, where, when, and how."

"Do you think they will—figure this out, I mean?"

"Not if I drop them far enough away. But the other question is… how are you going to handle broadcast power, now that you're the sole owner?"

"I guess I'm supposed to reveal it to the world. But if what Thomas said about the patents is true, I can plan on a long fight with the patent holders. Frankly, I've had enough of lawyers for a long time."

"There's always the Japanese. Yoshio's people will pay big bucks."

"You sound like you like that one."

"Yeah, well, take the money and run, and let them worry about the lawyers."

"You know," she said, "I don't care how much anybody wants to pay. The thought of profiting from anything that man touched makes me physically ill."

"So that leaves giving away the technology to everybody. Publishing it on the Internet—"

Her eyes flashed as she looked up at him. "Along with pictures of Thomas and me?"

"Hey, I didn't mean that. I meant the Internet would allow anybody who wanted to develop the technology to have free access to the plans."

"But what about you?" she said. "A third of nothing is nothing. I hate to see you come out on the short end of this, Jack. I mean, you've been stabbed, you almost got killed—"

"Don't worry about that. I couldn't take the money anyway."

"Why not?"

"Because I already have pretty much everything I want."

Alicia's gray eyes softened as she looked at him. "Do you? Do you really?"

"Yeah, well, sort of. And what I don't have, money can't buy me, so leave me out of the equation and do what you have to."

And the truth was, Jack couldn't see any way in the world to hide the kind of windfall that even a tiny share of broadcast power would bring. He'd have to come out from under to claim it, and he wasn't ready for that just yet. Not even for a couple three billion.

"Jack," she said as she tied the last strip of sheet. And now she sounded so weary. "I don't know what I have to do. I've got to think about it."

"Well," he said, standing and pulling up his jeans, "while you're thinking, I'm going to start gathering up the casualties."

13.

It took Jack a while to lug all six bodies, especially the two from the woods, to Baker's panel truck. A quarter inch of snow had collected by the time he arrived with the last—Kemel.

He could leave soon. He wasn't traveling with this cargo until it was fully dark. The last thing he needed was someone casually glancing into the rear window and seeing half a dozen corpses.

Jack thought Kemel was dead, but he startled Jack by letting out a moan as he was dumped on top of Baker.

"Please. A doctor… the pain…"

This wasn't good. If Kemel somehow hung oh until he was found, some hero with a scalpel and thread might actually save him. And that wouldn't do. Wouldn't do at all.

'Told you," Jack said. 'The folks on JAL 27 voted no doctor for Kemel."

The Arab whispered something Jack didn't catch. He leaned closer to hear.

"Plane… not me."

"But you knew about it, didn't you, you son of a bitch."

He saw the answer in Kemel's glazed eyes.

The adrenaline had trailed off, leaving Jack with a pounding headache. His thigh throbbed worse than ever from the exertion of moving the bodies. Foul didn't come close to his mood now. His mood was way far beyond foul… somewhere out near Mars, or maybe Saturn. And he knew from experience how dangerous that could be. He tended to become… unreasonable when he got this way.

Usually when he recognized the signs he'd step back, take a time-out, and push the darkness back into his personal basement. And he'd have been able to do that now if Kemel weren't alive. But knowing this rotten piece of camel dung was still breathing…

"Yeah, you knew about it, but did you call and give a warning? No. You let all those people die just to get rid of one man."

"Not me…"

"Yeah? Then who?"

"Please… the pain… please stop the pain."

What was he asking for? A coup de grace?

"You tell me who ordered the bomb, and I'll let you stop the pain."

"No… you… please."

"Sorry. I don't owe you that. But the name?"

"Nazer… Khalid Nazer."

"And where do I find him?"

"Iswid Nahr… trade mission… UN."

Khalid Nazer… Jack made a mental note of that as he drew Baker's 9mm. He popped the clip, leaving the chambered round; cocked the hammer, then pressed the muzzle into the soft spot under Kemel's jaw. He wrapped the Arab's fingers around the grip.

"Say your prayers and pull the trigger."

Then he walked away, leaving Kemel with his dose of the ultimate analgesic.

14.

Alicia started at the sound of the shot. She looked up and saw Jack limping across the clearing toward her. He looked weary. The Jack who'd driven her up here had changed into someone else, someone as cold and ruthless as the men he'd killed. As she'd bandaged his leg a while ago, she'd sensed the original Jack coming back… but slowly.

"What happened?" she called. "Are you all right?"

He nodded. "Just someone giving himself some permanent pain relief."

That someone could only be the Arab. Good Lord, how had he hung on this long?

"You ready to go?" Jack said. "I'll lead you out."

Alicia shook her head, "You go ahead. I'm going to stay awhile."

"The snow's sticking. You might not be able to get out later."

"That's okay. It's warm inside. And I've got a lot of thinking to do."

"You sure?"

"Very."

"Okay," he said, shrugging. "I'll leave you one of the cell phones. Call me when you get back, and I'll return the car."

"I will."

He turned to go, then turned back to her. "You sure you'll be all right?"

"Positive," she said, putting on a confident smile. "I just need to be alone right now."

"Yeah, well, that's one thing you'll be up here. Take care, Alicia." He waved as he turned. "And hey… Merry Christmas."

"Merry Christmas to you, Jack."

Merry Christmas… she'd forgotten all about Christmas. Only three days away… the season to be jolly…

She watched Jack fade into the snowy dusk, then stepped back into the cabin and closed the door.

She'd known from the moment it was over that she'd be staying here awhile. So while Jack was moving the bodies, she did her best to clean the blood from the floor. Finally she'd moved the throw rug from under the table and laid it over the stains.

She stepped over to the humming transformer-transmitter and stared at the beam of palpably bright light.