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"Almost as wonderful as the cleanup you and I had to perform less than an hour ago. But here, we had to abandon and burn the evidence ourselves because we hav...
Nolan shrugged. "I don't think we'd have learned much from the bodies, anyway."
Caine looked hard at Corcoran. "Why not?"
"Because they were amateurs, local freelancers. They came after you without any backup plan, their equipment was second-rate, and they were already here."
"Waiting for me?"
"No: if our adversaries had had any lead time, if they knew you'd be arriving here, they'd have shipped in an A-team. Real professionals. They'd have done the...
Caine felt the instinct to remain standing: sitting implied a trust, or acceptance, that he did not feel. But to remain standing was to signal hostility. No m...
Downing hunched forward. "So-what's the news from Day One, Nolan?"
"Bottom line: there's general agreement to create a global confederation. When the five blocs were presented with irrefutable evidence of exosapience, there w...
Caine cleared his throat; Nolan paused, nodded. "Just cut in whenever you want. No Robert's Rules, here."
"What you're talking about-sounds to me like it makes the U.N. redundant."
Downing nodded. "Hardly a surprise: the U.N. was never able to put into practice more than a handful of the edicts that it promulgated or the ideals that it e...
"Whereas now the big powers really want to work together?"
Nolan waved away that notion. "Oh, 'want' has never achieved anything. But the threat of exosapience means that they need to work together. Of course, that di...
Downing looked up from scribbling on his dataslate. "Beijing and Moscow?"
Nolan nodded. "The predictable axes were ground."
"But they're going to play nice?"
"So they say."
Caine frowned. "This all sounds surprisingly civilized."
"We knew that there would be a baseline of sanity from some of the blocs. Of course, there were still a few cranky gadflies in the ointment-even from the EU."...
Downing grunted. "Oh? Who?"
"Well . . . Gaspard."
"But of course. Parisian diplomat of the old school. Wanker."
"C'mon, Rich, cut him some slack. He's fighting to maintain some shred of France's past preeminence-"
Downing tapped his pencil. "Well, he-and the rest of his ilk-will just have to bloody well get used to the fact that France hasn't been an empire since Napole...
"That's a hard thing for a country to accept."
"Rot. Look at England: we've faced facts and moved on."
Nolan's left eyebrow arched. "Oh? Really?" Downing's mouth was open to begin a rebuttal, but Nolan held up his hand. "For now, let's just get through the day'...
Downing tapped his stylus on his slate. "Military authority?"
"Separate forces and R&D within each bloc. However, each bloc structures its forces and production to meet the defense responsibilities assigned to it by the ...
Downing seemed pensive. "And-what about intelligence operations?"
"The same model; separate national agencies, coordinated at the bloc level. Each bloc then contributes some assets to a centralized Confederation bureau."
"With which IRIS can augment its own data gathering and spread its influence."
Caine looked from Downing to Nolan and back to Downing: the same shrewd, satisfied smile on both faces. "You're not going to tell them about IRIS? I mean, isn...
Downing studied his fingers. "No: revealing IRIS now would destroy this infant Confederation in its crib."
"Why?"
"For twenty years, strings have been pulled, policies have been massaged-mostly by agents of the Commonwealth bloc-to bring delegates of the major nations to ...
Caine shook his head. "I wonder how many times a misguided international involvement has been prolonged with that kind of rhetoric: 'We will leave once the si...
Nolan shrugged. "Historical precedent is on your side, so I won't argue. I can only say that the alternative seems worse to me."
Caine silently conceded that Nolan also had a good-maybe superior-point. "So, what now?"
Nolan produced a bottle from the credenza, glanced at Richard. "Metaxa?"
"A double, if you please."
Nolan turned to Caine. "Want to join us? Just our little evening ritual."
"Thanks, I'll pass. I've got a big day tomorrow."
Nolan nodded. "We all do. But I could use some exercise to clear my head: want to take a walk up to the temple before dinner?"
Already halfway out, Caine turned. Not really. But he said: "Sure. I'll come along."
Chapter Nineteen
MENTOR
On his way out the door, Caine added, "Find me when you're done here."