"In all fairness, Bean, you have to remember that nobody was supposed to know it was me who did it. But someone really should tell me--why wasn't Peter on that shuttle? I suppose somebody caught my informant." He looked back and forth from Peter to Bean, looking for an answer.
Bean did not confirm or deny. Peter, too, kept his silence. What if Achilles lived through this somehow? Why bring down Achilles's wrath on a man who already had enough trouble in his life?
"But if you caught my informant," said Achilles, "why in the world would Chamrajnagar--or Graff, if it was him--launch the shuttle anyway? Was catching me doing something naughty so important they'd risk a shuttle and its crew just to catch me? I find that quite...flattering. Sort of like winning the Nobel Prize for scariest villain."
"I think," said Bean, "that you don't have the embryos at all. I think you dispersed them as soon as you got them. I think you already had them implanted in surrogates."
"Wrong," said Achilles. He reached inside his pants pocket and took out a small container. Exactly like the ones in which the embryos had been frozen. "I brought one along, just to show you. Of course, he's probably thawed quite a bit. My body heat and all that. What do you think? Do we still have time to get this little sucker implanted in somebody? Petra's already pregnant, I hear, so you can't use her. I know! Peter's mother! She always likes to be so helpful, and she's used to giving birth to geniuses. Here, Peter, catch!"
He tossed the container toward Peter, but too hard, so it sailed over Peter's upstretched hands and hit the floor. It didn't break, but instead rolled and rolled.
"Aren't you going to get it?" Achilles asked Bean.
Bean shrugged. He walked over to where the container had come to rest. The liquid inside it sloshed. Fully thawed.
He stepped on it, broke it, ground it under his foot.
Achilles whistled. "Wow. You are some disciplinarian. Your kids can't get away with anything with you."
Bean walked toward Achilles.
"Now, Bean, I can see how you might be irritated at me, but I never claimed to 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 g
o. 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.