The Prisoner - Carlos J. Cortes [102]
“You’re—”
“Brilliant?” she interrupted.
“Beautiful.”
Although he could see only her face, subliminal tendrils must have mixed with the digital bytes streaming from her set. Her reflection was disturbed by a quiet cough. Odelle stared into Vinson’s smiling eyes.
“Er—there’s a problem with your camera.”
Odelle arrested the motion of her fingers and checked the tiny light signaling the device’s operation.
“What’s up?”
“That would be of no interest to you. But your camera changed to wide angle a while ago.”
Odelle sat on the bathroom’s chaise longue, replaying her conversation with Vinson. There’s a design behind this madness. She frowned and scraped up the last of her raspberry mousse. Indeed there was. And Nikola had not zeroed in on the designer. Yet. But he would. Nikola was a patient man—thorough and a loyal mercenary. Loyal, because he knew she could destroy him, drag him down in her wake if things got hairy. She stood, reached to her earlobes, and removed her glossy studs, depositing them with care on a crystal tray. Pulling the plug and pulping a few inmates so that the number tallied would leave only Russo and his helpers as loose ends. The young lawyers were no longer minor felons but murderers, after culling their comrade. The lot could go down for life, and she would make sure they did. If—she quickly corrected herself—when they cleaned up the mess, she would set up a different set of rules for center use, perhaps to the point of doing away with the scheme altogether, and to hell with Vinson and his freebies. Well, perhaps not completely if she could recover Russo. Life consists of compromises and missed opportunities, thought Odelle, as she reached for a glass of Pellegrino. Then she grinned and took a sip. She’d seized too many opportunities to be entitled to complain.
On the edge of the bathtub, she lowered a foot into the scalding water with agonizing slowness, biting her lower lip to ward off a cry. Time seemed to slow until Odelle could plant the sole of her foot on the bathtub’s bottom, the muscles of her other leg bunching in a painful cramp. She repeated the movement until both her feet settled under eighteen inches of water. To sit down needed a slow ballet lasting several minutes. When she could relax her neck, water lapping her chin and her feet propped on the bathtub’s edges, Odelle surrendered to the steaming water. Her submerged skin had turned an angry red, and the built-up tension in her groin screamed for release.
She slipped her hand under the water.
Eons ago, Miko—a Tayü or first-class Oiran, in Ginza—had taught her the mysteries of a hot bath and shown her a bewildering array of funny-looking things she carried in a long sandalwood case. I must go back to Ginza. Soon. Then Odelle started to shake and the scalding water lapped against the marble sides, darkening the teak slats as it sloshed over. She ground her teeth and shook her head from side to side. Then her mouth sagged as a low-pitched wail escaped her lips.
day four
Inferno, Canto XXXI: 57–59
For where the mind’s acutest reasoning
is joined to evil will and evil power,
there human beings can’t defend themselves.
The Divine Comedy, DANTE ALIGHIERI
chapter 35
00:06
When Genia Warren finished poring over the thick wad of documents, it was past midnight. She’d been in and out of meetings all day with her staff, drafting security proposals, following the passage of several bills through Congress that affected FBH, and waiting for a summons from DHS Director Odelle Marino. A summons that never came. During a recess, she’d exchanged a few words with Lawrence Ritter, the Federal Bureau of Hibernation security director. He hadn’t heard from Odelle either but knew that she’d been closeted in her offices after canceling or rescheduling all outstanding appointments.
Out of habit, and before turning in, Genia checked her personal e-mail in-box. She read of her mother’s concerns for the pounding her flowers