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be an athlete. When did I have a chance to play ball, will you tell me that? You grew up where I did. I can't help it that I don't know how to throw accurately."
He was still affecting his ironic tone of voice, but Bean could see that Achilles was afraid now. He had been expecting Bean to beg, or grieve-something that would keep him off balance and give control to Achilles. But Bean was seeing things through Achilles's eyes now, and he understood: You do whatever your enemy can't believe that you would even think of doing. You just do it.
Bean reached into the butt holster that rode inside his pants, hanging from the waistband, and pulled out the flat .22-caliber pistol concealed there. He pointed it at Achilles's right eye, then the left.
Achilles took a couple of steps backward. "You can't kill me," he said. "You don't know where the embryos are.
"I know you don't have them," said Bean, "and that I'm not going to get them without letting you go. And I'm not letting you go. So I guess that means the embryos are forever lost to me. Why should you go on living?"
"Suri," said Achilles. "Are you asleep?"
Suriyawong pulled his long knife from its sheath.
"That's not what's needed here," said Achilles. "He has a gun."
"Hold still, Achilles," said Bean. "Take it like a man. Besides, if I miss, you might live through it and spend the rest of your days as a brain-damaged shell of a man. We want this to be nice and clean and final, don't we?"
Achilles pulled another vial out of his pockets. "This is the real thing, Bean." He reached out his hand, offering it. "You killed one, but there are still the other four."
Bean slapped it out of his hand. This one broke when it hit the floor.
"Those are your children you're killing!" cried Achilles.
"I know you," said Bean. "I know that you would never promise me something you could actually deliver."
"Suriyawong!" shouted Achilles. "Shoot him!"
"Sir," said Suriyawong.
It was the first sound he'd made since Bean came through the east gate.
Suriyawong knelt down, laid his knife on the smooth floor, and slid it toward Achilles until it rested at his feet.
"What's this supposed to be?" demanded Achilles.
"The loan of a knife," said Suriyawong.
"But he has a gun!" cried Achilles.
"I expect you to solve your own problems," said Suriyawong, "without getting any of my men killed."
"Shoot him!" cried Achilles. "I thought you were my friend."
"I told you from the start," said Suriyawong. "I serve the Hegemon." And with that, Suriyawong turned his back on Achilles.
So did all the other soldiers.
Now Bean understood why Suriyawong had worked so hard to earn Achilles's trust: so that at this moment of crisis, Suri was in a position to betray him.
Achilles laughed nervously. "Come on now, Bean. We've known each other a long time." He had backed up against a wall. He tried to lean against it. But his legs were a little wobbly and he started to slide down the wall. "I know you, Bean," he said. "You can't just kill a man in cold blood, no matter how much you hate him. It's not in you to do that."
"Yes it is," said Bean.
He aimed the pistol down at Achilles's right eye and pulled the trigger. The eye snapped shut from the wind of the bullet passing between the eyelids and from the obliteration of the eye itself. His head rocked just a little from the force of the little bullet entering, but not leaving.
Then he slumped over and sprawled out on the floor. Dead.
It didn't bring back Poke, or Sister Carlotta, or any of the other people he had killed. It didn't change the nations of the world back to the way they were before Achilles started making them his building blocks, to break apart and put together however he wanted. It didn't end the wars Achilles had started. It didn't make Bean feel any better. There was no joy in vengeance, and precious little in justice, either.
But there was this: Achilles would never kill again.
That was all Bean could ask of a little .22.
CHAPTER TWENTY
HOME
From: YourFresh%[email protected]
To: MyStone%[email protected]
Re: Come home
He's dead.
I'm not.
He didn't have them.
We'll find them, one way or another, before I die.
Come home. There's nobody trying to kill you any more.
Petra flew on a commercial jet, in a reserved seat, under her own name, using her own passport.
Damascus was full of excitement, for it was now the capital of a Muslim