"Wil!" Tammy was on her feet, her eyes wide. "We would never kill to —" She was interrupted by Della Lu's quiet laughter. She looked over her shoulder and saw the wild look on Lu's face. She looked back at Wil, her lips trembling. "Wil, believe me."
Brierson waited for her to sit before he continued; the counts on his display flat were 00:10:11 and 00:23:31. "Evidently, a good motive is of no use in identifying the enemy. So let's look at the enemy's actions. Both the Peacer and NM governments were infiltrated. Can they tell us anything about who we're up against?" Wil looked across the low-techs, Peacers and NMs together. He recognized top staff people from both sides. Several shook their heads. Someone shouted, "Fraley must have known!"
The last President of the Republic sat alone. His uniform still bore insignia, but he was slouched forward, his elbows on his knees and his hands propping up his chin. "Mr. President?" Wil said softly.
Fraley looked up without raising his head. Even his hatred for Wil seemed burnt out. "I just don't know, Brierson. All our talks were over the comm. He used a synthetic voice and never sent video. He was with us almost from the beginning. Back then, he said he wanted to protect us from Korolev, said we were the only hope for stability. We got inside data, a few medical goodies. We didn't even see the machines that made the deliveries. Later on, he showed me that someone else was backing the Peacers.... From there, he owned our souls. If the Peace had high-tech backing, we'd be dead without our own. More and more, I was just his mouthpiece. In the end, he was all through our system." Now Fraley raised his head. There were dark rings around his eyes. When he spoke again, there was a strange intensity in his voice; if his old enemy could forgive him, perhaps he could himself. "I had no choice, Brierson. I thought if I didn't play ball, whoever was behind the Peace would kill us all."
A woman — Gail Parker-shouted, "So you had no choice, and the rest of us followed orders. And — and like good little troopers, we all cut our own throats!"
Wil raised his hand. "It doesn't matter, Gail. By that time, the enemy had complete control of your system. If you hadn't pushed the buttons, they would have been pushed for you." The short count on his display read 00:08:52. A map of the land around Castle Korolev suddenly flashed on the display, together with the words: "WIL: HE IS ARMED. GUNS AS ON MAP. I STILL SAY TO GO FOR IT. I'M READY ON THE MARK... 00:08:51."
Wil cleared the screen with a casual motion and continued talking. "It's too much to expect that the enemy would have given away his name.... Yet I'm sure Kim Tioulang had figured it out. There was some particular person he was trying to avoid when he talked to me at the North Shore picnic; he was trying to get to Town Korolev when he was murdered.
"And that raises an interesting question. Steve Fraley is a smart guy. What would Kim see that Steve would not? Kim went back a long way. He was one of the three planetary Directors of the Peace Authority. He was privy to every secret of that government...." Wil looked at Yelén. "We've concentrated so much on superscientific plots and villains, we've forgotten the Machiavellis who came before us."
"There's no way our enemy could be a low-tech." Yelén's words were an objection, but there was sudden enthusiasm in her eyes.
Wil leaned across the podium. "Perhaps not now... but originally?" He pointed at Lu. "Consider Della. She grew up in the early twenty-first, was a top Peace cop. She also lived through most of the twenty-second. And now she's probably the most powerful high-tech of all."
Della had been mumbling to herself. Now her dark eyes came alive. She laughed, as if he had made a joke. "So true. I was born when people still died of old age. Kim and I fought for the last empire. And we fought dirty. Someone like me would be a tough enemy for the likes of you."
"If it's Della, we're dead," said Yelén. And revenge is impossible.
Wil nodded. The count stood at 00:07:43. "Who else fills the requirements? Someone high in the Peacer command structure. Of course, GreenInc shows that none of you high-techs have such a past. So this hypothetical other must have eluded capture during the fall of the Peace, covered his tracks, and lived a new life through the twenty-second. It must have been a disappointing situation for him: the Peace forces straggling back into realtime to be mopped up piecemeal, hope for a new Peace dying."
00:07:10. He wasn't speaking hypothetically anymore. "In the end, our enemy saw there was only one chance for the resurrection of his empire: the Peacer fort that was bobbled in Kampuchea. That was the Authority's best-equipped redoubt. Like the others, it was designed to come back to realtime in about fifty years. But by some grotesque accident, its bobbler had generated an enormously longer stasis. All through the twenty-second it lay a few hundred meters below ground, an unremarkable battle relic. But our enemy had plans for it. Fifty million years: surely no other humans would exist in such a remote era. Here was a golden opportunity to start the Peace over, and with an empty world. So our Peacer accumulated equipment, medical supplies, a zygote bank, and left the civilization he hated."
Genet's lazy smile was broader now, showing teeth. "And who might be so high in the Peace Authority that Tioulang would recognize him?" Juan Chanson seemed to shrink in upon himself.
Wil ignored the byplay. "Kim Tioulang was Peace Director for Asia. There were only two other Directors. The American one was killed when Livermore returned to realtime in 2101. The Director for Eurafrica was —"
"Christian Gerrault," said Yelén. She was on her feet, walking slowly across the floor of the amphitheater, her eves never leaving Genet. "The fat slug they called the Butcher of Eurafrica. He disappeared. All through the twenty-second his enemies waited around likely bobbles, but he was never found."
Genet looked from Yelén to Wil. "I commend you, Inspector, though if you had taken much longer to discover my identity, I would have had to announce it myself. Except for a few loose ends, my success is now complete. It's important that you understand the situation: Survival is still possible... but only on my terms." He glanced at Yelén. "Sit down, woman."
00:05:29. The timing was out of Wil's hands now. He had the terrible feeling this had come too soon.
Gerrault/Genet looked at Yelén, who had stopped her advance but was still standing. "I want you all to understand what I have gone through to achieve this moment. You must not doubt that I will show the disobedient no mercy.
"For fifty years I lived in the pitiful anarchy you call civilization. For fifty years I played the game. I lightened my skin. I starved one hundred kilos off my normal body weight. I starved myself of the... pleasures... that are due a great leader. But I suppose that is what makes me Christian Gerrault, and you sheep. I had goals for which I was willing to sacrifice anything and anyone. My new order might take fifty million years to flower, but there was work to be done all along the way. I heard of the Korolevs and their queer plan to rescue the shanghaied. At first, I thought to destroy them; our plans were so much alike. Then I realized that they could be used. Till near the end, they would be my allies. The important thing was that they lack some critical element of success, something only I could supply." He smiled at the still-standing Yelén. "You and Marta had everything planned. You even brought enough med equipment and fertilized human eggs to ensure the colony's survival.... Have you ever wondered why those zygotes were nonviable?"
"You?"
Gerrault laughed at the horror in Yelén's face. "Of course. Foolish, naive women. I guaranteed your failure even before you left civilization. It was an expensive operation; I had to buy several companies to guarantee your purchase would be trashed. But it was worth it .... You see, my supply of zygotes and my medical equipment still survive. They are the only such in existence now." He came to his feet and turned to face the main part of his audience. His voice boomed across the theater, and Wil wondered that he had not been recognized before. True, his appearance and accent were very different from the historical Gerrault's. He looked more like a North American than an African, and his body was gaunt to the point of emaciation. But when he talked like this, the soul within shone through all disguise. This was the Christian Gerrault of the historical videos. This was the fat, swaggering Director whose megalomania had dominated two continents and dwarfed any rational self-interest.