Palardy had clearly remembered that instance in Qui- ros’s car the other night. And was remembering it again as he reached for the can of wafers, pulled off its plastic lid, and set it down on the desktop. The can was more
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pBian three-quarters empty. Maybe ten wafers left inside.
pHe got the flat leather case out of his coverall pocket,
I unzipped it, produced the disposable syringe, and laid it
fcfceside the can lid. He’d already drawn the solution from
ll’the ampule and tossed it. This should take him sixty
seconds, ninety max.
Get it over with, he thought. Get it done. With his right hand, he fished one of the wafers out fpof the can. With his left he inserted the syringe’s needle ildeep into the opening at one end of the rolled wafer and JNfepressed the plunger about a millimeter. Colorless, Irodorless, tasteless, the contents of the ampule would in- H discernibly permeate the wafer’s cream-filled center.
Removing the needle, Palardy put the wafer back in the can, and injected a second, a third, and a fourth wafer.
That would be enough. Would have to be. There was more of the suspension in the hypo, but he couldn’t bear staying in the office any longer. His stomach felt like a “brick of ice.
Palardy closed the can, returned the syringe to the BS^se, and slipped the case back into his pocket.
He was taking off his gloves when he heard the doorknob turning behind him. His heart tripped. “Any luck?” B* Norma’s voice. From the doorway.
It was the worst moment of his life to that point. Worse, even, than his last terrible meeting with Quiros. ^Balanced equally between guilt and terror, he went ‘numb everywhere, the blood seeming to flush from his ;veins.
Somehow Palardy managed to stand perfectly still,
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Tom Clancy’s Power Plays
managed to keep his body between his hands and the doorway until he’d finished peeling the gloves from his fingers and stuffed them into a patch pocket on his thigh.
He turned toward Norma. She was leaning into the room through the open door.
“No,” he said. Realizing nervously that he hadn’t looked himself over, hadn’t made sure the gloves weren’t sticking out of his pocket. Wondering if she could see them. “Not a bit.”
The receptionist studied his face a second, shrugged.
“Sorry, my dear,” she said. “But in the meantime, don’t look so worried, I’m sure your thingamajig will turn up.”
She didn ‘t notice, Palardy thought. Merciful God, she didn ‘t notice.
He nodded.
“Yeah,” he said. “Suppose I can manage without it, meanwhile.”
Then the phone on her desk chirruped.
“Better answer that, hope you don’t mind letting yourself out,” she said and ducked her head back into the outer office area. “I’ll remind the cleanup crews to stay on the lookout.”
Palardy took a gulp of air, smoothed his coveralls over his body with sweaty palms. The gloves weren’t show- big. She hadn’t seen anything. He was going to be okay.
A moment later, he followed Norma into the anteroom, exchanging a smile and a wave as he went past her desk, got into the elevator, and rode it downstairs.
Moving on legs he could hardly feel through a world that would never again seem to be the one he’d always known.
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Ash,” Gordian said into his office phone. “Your els down at LAX yet?”
“On the ground, safe and sound,” she said. “I’m call!
on my cellular from the arrivals terminal, so you can biting your nails.”
Gordian smiled. Nearly four decades of flying planes
nging from Air Force bombers to his private Learjet
I made him a well nigh unbearable backseat pilot, and
: became even more fretful whenever his wife or kids : to the air with someone else’s hand at the controls.
Grown kids, he reminded himself.
‘Trip okay?”
“Couldn’t have been smoother,” Ashley said. “How things at the office?”
“Not without pockets of turbulence,” he said. “I just Ktetreated to my desk after running into one, matter of pact. You know Mark Debarre? The Marketing veep?”
“Sure. Nice guy.”
“Usually,” Gordian said. “You should’ve seen him
out fangs at today’s sales conference. Almost sank
em into one of the guys from Promotions when they into a flap about whether to call those information
vnload kiosks we’ve developed Infopods or Data- Upods”
She laughed.
Even from hundreds of miles away, the sound warmed |Mm. It was like being able to hear a sunbeam.
“Which was Mark’s preference?”
“The first.”
“And yours?”
“I’m back and forth.”
“Hmmm,” she said. “I’ll think about it over the week- jpend, give you my opinion, if you’d like.”
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Tom Clancy’s Power Plays
,’Td like.”
“Then consider me on it,” she said. “Meanwhile, Laurie, Anne, and yours truly are about to hold a marketing conference of our own at the luggage claim. We wish to become the most enthusiastically vulnerable, suggestible consumers we can be.”
Gordian smiled, reached into his tall can of rolled wafers, fished one out of the can, and let it steep in the cup of coffee on his desk. Ashley’s pre-Thanksgiving shopping weekend with her sisters in L.A. was a lollapalooza that had grown in size, scope, and budget each year, seemingly by conscious design.
“Did I hear you say luggage claim?” he said. “Since you’re only going to be away from home for two days, my impression was you’d be okay with carry on.”
As always, Ashley knew a setup line when it was pitched to her.
‘The suitcases, my love, are for bringing home the bounty,” she said.
“Guess I’d better wait till you’re done with the charge cards before filing for Chapter Eight, then.”
‘That would be considerate.” She laughed again.
A sunbeam touching the wings of a butterfly, Gordian thought. On the brightest and bluest day of summer.
“I really should get cracking,” Ashley said after a moment. “Meet you at Julia’s house Sunday afternoon, okay?”
“Why don’t I pick you up at the airport,” he said. “We could drive there together afterward.”
“Really, Gord, you don’t need to bother. It’s easier for me to arrange for a car.”
“Well…”
“Besides, some father-daughter alone time might be
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1 for the two of you. And I know you’d like to finish : doggie corral you’re building for Jack and Jill.” “That I would …”
f’Then knock yourself out,” she said. “/ certainly II.”
Gordian pulled his wafer out of his coffee, examined : idly, dunked it back into the cup. “You win,” he said. “Have fun. And give my regards i your partners-in-buying.” “Will do on both counts,” she said. “Love you.” “Love you, too, Ash.”
Gordian hung up the phone, reached for his cup, i, and decided the wafer stick had imparted all the elnut flavor it was going to. The result wasn’t quite ; satisfying as the high-sat-fat coffee blend he’d relinhed at Ashley’s insistence, but having the wafer to ck on with his hot beverage offered something of a
alation.
He took a bite of the end that had been soaking in the fee, like a man playing Russian roulette without even i inkling that he holds a cocked and loaded revolver in
hand. !*This, his second rolled wafer of the day, was not
ng those Palardy had injected. ‘Three hours later, Gordian would sneak a third into daily allotment as a perk to himself after hearing : cries and lamentations from his fueding execs. lat was the bullet that got him.
fou have any thoughts about why I asked to see you
this late on a Friday afternoon?” ^”Well, sir-” f “Tom’s fine for now,” Ricci said. After seven months
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Tom Clan cy’s Power Plays
on the job, he guessed he was past due making up his mind how he wanted to be addressed by his subordinates.
“Yes, sir,” Nichols cleared his throat nervously. “Tom.”
Ricci looked across his desk at the kid.
“And what might they be?”
The kid’s face was confused.
“Your thoughts,” Ricci said.
“Oh.” Nichols cleared his throat again. “Well, it’s late Friday afternoon …”
“Which I already established,” Ricci said.
“Yes, you did, sorry, Tom …”
Ricci wound his hand in the air.
“My assumption was that you’d waited till the end of this week to complete your evaluation of my actions during last week’s training exercise. And, uh, that you wish to discharge me from the RDT before next week gets under way.”
Ricci looked at him.
“That had occurred to me,” he said.
The room was quiet a moment. In fact, it was dead still. Late Friday afternoon, almost everybody had gone home for the weekend. Even the corridor outside was deserted.
Ricci glanced at the wire-basket penholder on the desk near his left elbow, decided it was situated too close to him, pushed it farther away, decided he liked its original position better, and returned it there.
“We know what went wrong with the office penetration,” he said. “Looking back, you want to tell me how it should’ve been executed?”