His eyes at once motionless and searching, his thin features caught in the ever-still space between thought and expression, DeVane suddenly recalled a string of words from an old leather-bound volume in his library: What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy!
He breathed, as always, without a sound.
These were idle musings, and there were far more important matters to occupy his mind. Matters from which he could only divert himself temporarily, for they were bound to catch up with him, tearing at his false peace like the swipe of claws in the night.
The Sleeper virus that was to have gained him a fortune beyond any ever amassed, prestige beyond any imaginable height-given him the power to steer the sun across the sky-had brought him instead to abject humiliation. With the inhibitors now as commonly available as aspirin, his customers had paid vast sums for genetic triggers that were worth less to them than dust. Some had targeted victims by the hundreds, the thousands, and more. He had wanted only the death of a single man, Roger Gordian … and none had gotten the thing for which they had put their good money down.
So what was left for him now? What goddamned pipes and timbrels?
Humiliation. Ignominy. Clients who had become enemies by the score.
And because of Siegfried Kuhl’s ineffectiveness, his
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BIO-STRIKE
failure to eliminate Gordian even by brute, overt force of hand, the very strong chance that the careful screens that ensured his anonymity, that allowed him to roam the world free, would begin to be peeled away.
DeVane closed his eyes and slowly, slowly bent his head back so it was exposed in full to the strong, tropical sun. The rays stung his pale, almost colorless skin, and he knew it would not take long before he burned.
He sat there and did not move.
453
Tom Clancy fs Power Plays
IFQILinrilKA
A new Soviet Union. A new political arena. A new
adventure in military strategy that only Tom Clancy
could have conceived…