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mercy and you, too. Also, her life as well as yours is in your hands as of
now. One cross, one little slip by either of you, one thing going even
slightly off even if it's something beyond your doing or control and both of
you won't be dead, but you'll wish you were. You understand?"
I nodded seriously, noting the vicious undertone in his voice. It was an edge,
a very slight chilling undertone, that had been absent before. I realized
suddenly that I was facing the real Wagant Laroo, although I hadn't the first
time, and I
felt the odds tilt very slightly back to me. I could recognize him if I was
careful. Could pick him out in his room full of doubles. Those others, that
first one, were damned good actors, but the kind of emotional undertone here
had to be, I felt, unique to the real one.
Bogen suddenly paled as a worthy opponent' in my eyes. I could see him shrink
into insignificance in my mind, a minor-league security chief. Wagant Laroo
was the most chillingly dangerous human being I had ever met. I never doubted
for a second his threat, or his ability to make good on it.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Creative Psych and Proposition Time
"I still can't believe you managed it," Dylan told me on the way over to
Dumonia's. "My God, Qwin! In one year you've come here, framed a big shot,
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us%20A%20Wolf%20in%20the%20Fold.txt become a company president, wormed your
way into a high-level security project, and now you've even managed to get a
judgment reversed a judgment not too many months old!"
I nodded and smiled, but that dark edge that came in when things were underway
and out of control was irrepressible, "Still, we're only halfway home. The
trickiest parts are yet to come, and this guy Laroo really bothers me. Dylan,
I
looked at him and I knew real fear, real danger. These Four Lords are the best
of their kind, an ultimate evolutionary type. The whole Warden Diamond concept
was the dumbest thing the Confederacy ever accomplished. I see that now. They
put the absolute best, most brilliant criminal psychopaths together on one
spot.
The survivor of such struggles has to be the perfection of their
kind thoroughly brilliant, totally amoral, totally ruthless. He thought of
every way to screw me up just while I was sitting there, and I think he knows,
or at least suspects, what I'm up to."
"But you talked yourself out of his traps," she pointed out, "and he went
along with you. If he's that good, why did he?"
"I think I know. Consider his position. His biggest weakness is his fear that
at any moment his enormous and growing power may be snuffed out. It was
already a fear before, but now that one of the Four Lords is gone, it has
become an obsession. He has the best minds on Cerberus working on his ultimate
solution including Merton, who may be one of the best minds in that area,
period. And they can't crack it. He needs Project Phoenix. So even figuring on
a double-cross of some kind, he's willing to let me go ahead anyway. He has no
choice. The only thing he can do is let me go all the way, using Merton and
the others to uncover my tricks, in the hopes that I'll still solve the
problem for him. It's the ultimate challenge, Dylan. He's betting his ego
against mine that he can outfox me before I can outfox him."
"You're sure he knows you're planning something?"
I nodded. "He knows. Like Bogen said, you get a gut feeling, pro to pro. Like
the gut feelings you relied on most heavily in the bork hunts. He knows simply
because of the bottom line. Once I deliver, he has everything to fear from me
and nothing to gain by keeping me around. We both understand that. He knows
I'll have to pull something, and he is betting he can figure it out. That's
why the free leash right now, the giving in to my conditions. It doesn't
matter as long as I deliver the goods."
She looked at me. "Can you deliver?"
I shrugged. "I haven't the slightest idea. That'll be up to Otah and my
brother and Krega and those above him. In the end, I have to bet on their
being able to come up with the solution to the problem."
She just nodded and turned and looked back out the window of the helicab.
Soon we arrived at Dumonia's offices and were quickly ushered in. Laroo had
wasted no time in setting all this up, since he saw assassins in every corner.
He was probably right.
Dumonia, too, seemed impressed. While Dylan was off with the thirteen judges
assembled on Laroo's orders just for this purpose, we sat, relaxed, and
talked.
I liked Dumonia, although I didn't trust him.
"Well, so you blew the lid off your cover," he noted casually.
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