nods of approval and murmurs of excitement from the watching Movement leaders.
Lazarus held up a hand in warning. "But do not forget that our enemies are also on the move. Their secret war against us has failed. So now the open war I have long predicted has begun. The slaughters in Santa Fe and in Chicago are surely only the first of many atrocities they plan."
He stared directly into the cameras, knowing that it would appear to each of the widely dispersed cells that his eyes were focused solely on them. "The war has begun," he repeated. "We have no choice. We must strike back, swiftly and surely and without remorse. Wherever possible, your operations should avoid taking innocent life, but we must destroy these nanotech laboratories - the breeding vats of death - before our enemies can unleash more horrors on the world, and on us."
"What about the facilities of Nomura PharmaTech?" the head of the Tokyo cell asked. "After all, this corporation, alone among all the others, has already agreed to our demands. Their research work is at an end."
"Spare Nomura PharmaTech?" Lazarus said coldly. "I think not. Hideo Nomura is a shrewd young man - too shrewd. He bends when the
wind is strong, but does not break. When he smiles, it is the smile of a shark. Do not be taken in by Nomura. I know him far too well."
The leader of the Tokyo cell bowed his head, accepting the reproof. "It shall be as you command, Lazarus."
When at last the conference screens went dark, the man called Lazarus stood alone, savoring his moment of triumph. Years of planning and preparation were coming to fruition. Soon the hard and dangerous work of reclaiming the world would begin. And soon the harsh, but necessary, sacrifices he had made would be redeemed.
His eyes clouded over briefly, full of remembered pain. Softly he recited the poem, a haiku, that often lingered close to the edge of his waking mind:
"Sorrow, like mist, falls On a father forsaken By his faithless son."
Chapter Twenty-Three
North of Santa Fe
The morning snn, rising ever higher in a cloud-streaked azure sky, seemed to set the big, flat-topped hill looming above the Rancho de Chimayo aflame. Pifion pines and junipers along its crest stood starkly outlined against the dazzling golden light. Sunshine spread down steep slopes and threw long shadows across the old hacienda's sprawling apple orchards and terraced patios.
Still wearing his jeans, boots, and corduroy jacket, Jon Smith walked through the crowded dining rooms of the ancient adobe house and out onto a stone-flagged patio. Set in the foothills roughly twenty-five miles north of Santa Fe, the Rancho de Chimayo was one of the oldest restaurants in New Mexico. Its owners traced their lineage back to the original wave of Spanish colonists in the Southwest. Their family had first settled at Chimayo in 1680, during the long and bloody Pueblo Indian revolt against Spanish rule.
Peter Howell was seated there already, waiting for him at one of the patio tables. He waved his old friend into the empty chair across from him. "Take a pew, Jon," he said kindly. "Damned if you don't look all in."
Smith shrugged, resisting the temptation to yawn. "I had a long night."
"Any serious trouble?"
Jon shook his head. Collecting his laptop and other gear from the Fort Marcy suites had proved unexpectedly easy. Wary at first of FBI or terrorist surveillance, he had used every trick he knew to flush any tail
without spotting anyone. But doing that right took time, and lots of it. Which meant he had not checked into his new digs, a cheap fleabag motor lodge on the outskirts of Santa Fe, until close to dawn. Then he had phoned Fred Klein and told him about the unsuccessful attempt on his life. All in all, he had scarcely had time to close his eyes before Peter called to set this clandestine rendezvous.
"And no one followed you? Then or now?" the Englishman asked after listening intently to Smith's account of his actions.
"Not a soul."
"Most curious," Peter said, arching a shaggy gray eyebrow. He frowned. "And more than a little worrying."
Smith nodded. Try as he might, he could not understand why the FBI had been so eager to track his movements all yesterday - and then seemingly called off its team only hours before four gunmen tried to kill him. Maybe Kit Pierson's agents had simply assumed he was in his suite to stay and packed it in for the night, but