“Kosigin?”

Dulwater nodded. “I get the feeling if I stick close to you, I’ll get Kosigin.”

“And then you hand Kosigin to Allerdyce?”

“But not all at once. He wouldn’t be grateful if I just handed that bastard over. One little piece at a time.”

Reeve shook his head. Everybody wanted something: Duhart wanted something on Allerdyce; Dulwater wanted something over Allerdyce; Allerdyce wanted Kosigin; Kosigin and Jay wanted Reeve.

And what did Gordon Reeve want? He thought of Nietzsche again: the will to power. Power was what most of these games were all about, the desire for power, the fear of loss of power. Reeve wasn’t a part of the game. He was on another board with different pieces. He wanted revenge.

“You know,” he said, “I’m not even sure I should be talking to someone who broke into my damned house.”

Dulwater shrugged. “I wasn’t the first. Alliance didn’t plant those bugs, Kosigin’s men did. Besides, what have you to lose by cooperating? You surely don’t think you can do anything to harm Kosigin on your own.”

“I’m not on my own.”

“You’ve got help?” Dulwater thought for the merest second. “Cantona?” Reeve’s face failed to disguise his surprise. “Cantona’s a deadbeat. You think you can put him up against Kosigin?”

“How do you know about Cantona?”

“You forget, Kosigin hired Alliance to compile a dossier on your brother. We’re very thorough, Gordon. We not only did a full background check, including family, we watched him for a couple of weeks. We watched him get to know Cantona.”

“Then you handed the lot over to Kosigin and he had my brother killed.”

“There’s no evidence-”

“Everybody keeps telling me that!”

Dulwater still hadn’t touched his drink. He ran his thumb around the rim of the frosted glass. “A good argument for letting me help you. The courts aren’t going to be any use. You’re never going to have enough evidence to go to court with. The best you can hope for is that someone else makes Kosigin’s life hell. Kosigin lives for power, Gordon. If someone else gains power over him it’s the worst torture he could ever imagine, and it will last the rest of his life.” He sat back, argument over.

Reeve sighed. “Maybe you’re right,” he lied. “Okay, what exactly do you propose?”

Dulwater stared at him, measuring his sincerity. Reeve concentrated on the beer. “Why did you come back here?” Dulwater asked.

“I wanted to speak to a few people. I intend speaking to one of them tonight. You can help.”

“How?”

“Two things: one, I need a video camera, a good one, plus a couple of recorders, more if you can get them. I want to make copies of a videotape.”

“You need these tonight?”

Reeve nodded.

“Okay, I don’t foresee a problem. What’s the other thing?”

“I need you to keep lookout for me.”

“Where?”

“In La Jolla.” Reeve paused. “About two miles away from where I’ll actually be.”

“I think you’ve lost me.”

“I’ll explain later. You’re sure you can get the equipment?”

“Pretty sure. It may take a few phone calls. It may have to be brought down from L.A. Are you in a hotel here?”

“Same one I stayed in last time, the Radisson.”

“I’m in the Marriott,” Dulwater informed him. Reeve’s face was a mask. “It’s more central. We’ll set the gear up in my room if that’s all right with you.”

“Fine,” Reeve said dryly.

At last Dulwater took a sip of his beer. He pretended to savor it as he framed another question. “What is it you’re going to video exactly?”

“A confession,” Reeve said. “One man unburdening his soul.”

“Film at eleven,” Dulwater said with a smile.

REEVE PARKED THE DART a couple of streets away from where he wanted to be.

There was a pizza delivery van parked curbside, a little boxy three-wheeler which looked like it might use an electric motor. He hadn’t seen anyone inside it as he’d driven past, and he didn’t see anyone in it now. He gave it another couple of minutes-maybe the delivery boy was having trouble making change. But he knew there was no delivery boy really. What there was was an undercover cop, keeping watch on the bungalow, except he’d been called to another job just a couple of miles away. The electric motor wouldn’t take him there, so his buddies had come and picked him up.

Reeve checked his watch. It was quarter to midnight. He didn’t have much time. Having already noted the delivery van, he hadn’t bothered bringing the video camera with him. It was still locked in the Dart’s trunk. He walked down the street then back up the other side. There was no one about, no neighborhood patrol or crime watch. Reeve stopped for a moment beside the delivery van. It boasted a radio with handset attached. He saw now why they’d used a delivery van: there was nothing particularly odd about such a van having a radio. It might have been so the driver could keep in touch with base.

Indeed, that was just what it was for.

Lights were burning in the bungalow, but not brightly. A reading lamp maybe. The curtains were closed, the light seeping out from around the edges of the window. Reeve opened the slatted wooden gate, hearing bells jangle from a string attached to the back of it. He walked up to the bungalow and rang the bell. He was hoping there would be someone home. With the journalist dead, he was betting they’d have let the scientist come home. He heard a chain rattle. A security chain. The door opened a couple of inches, and Reeve stepped back to give it the meat of his shoe heel. It took two blows till the door burst open.

He had wanted the elderly man shocked, surprised, scared. He was getting all three.

“Dr. Killin?” he said to the figure cowering in the short hallway, holding a book over his head. The title of the book was something to do with molecular biology.

The old man looked up, blinking spaniel eyes. Reeve hit him just hard enough to send him to sleep.

He left the body where it lay and went back outside. There was still no one about. The houses were separated by high hedges. Somebody might have seen him from the house across the way but it was in darkness, and besides, the pizza van hid Dr. Killin’s doorway from general view. Reeve jumped the gate rather than bothering to open it, and jogged back to his car. He brought it around to Dr. Killin’s house, parking next to the pizza van. The old man didn’t weigh much and was easy to carry out to the car. Reeve dropped him onto the backseat, then went back to the house, switched off the lamp beside Killin’s chair, and pulled the front door closed. In the shadow of the covered porch, you could hardly notice the splintered wood of the surround. From out on the pavement, you couldn’t see it at all.

Reeve got into the Dart and drove north on a local road that seemed to parallel I-5 but kept closer to the edge of the Pacific Ocean. Just south of Del Mar, he pulled the car into a rest area sheltered from the road but with a view of the ocean. Not that you could see anything much, but with the window rolled down Reeve could hear the waves. He got out of the car and opened the trunk, bringing out the video camera and the replacement for Lucky 13. Back in the driver’s seat, he swiveled so he was facing Killin. Then he switched on the car’s interior lights. Dulwater and he had discussed lighting, but this camera had a good low-light facility and even a spot beam of its own-though using it would drain the batteries fast. Reeve switched the camera to ready, removed the lens cap, and put his eye to the viewfinder. He watched the old man stirring. The needle on the viewfinder told him the lighting was poor, but not unusable. Reeve put the camera down again and picked up the dagger. It was the first thing Dr. Killin saw when he woke up.

He sat upright, looking terrified. Reeve wondered for a moment if the knife would be enough to slice the truth from the man.