Toys caught my eye for a moment, perhaps searching to see if I was alone inside my head. And although there was no warmth or kindness there, he gave me a nod. One fighter to another.

“Try not to kill anyone who’s not a Fixer,” I said.

“What about the militiamen?” asked Toys.

“Feel free to dent them, but the courts can sort them out. The Fixers are the true threat. You can kill every last one of those pricks.”

“Count on it,” said Toys.

“As for you, Joseph,” said Violin, “feel free to kill that evil little man.”

I stole Toys’s line. “Oh, you can definitely count on that.”

We split up, and I ran for the dais once more. Some of the Fixers who’d chased me back came at me, but I put them down. When I reached the doors to the back, I had the dart gun in one hand and my knife in the other. The Darkness was welling up inside me, and I wondered if it wasn’t time to let it hold sway over everything else that happened.

CHAPTER 170

THE PLAYROOM

UNDISCLOSED LOCATION

NEAR VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA, CANADA

Kuga was at his desk with three laptops open, a cell phone tucked between shoulder and ear, and several maps laid out on the top of his desk. Things were happening, but the timetable was screwed up. The driver of one of the transport trucks was jabbering about a hit at the Pavilion. HK reported in that the venue for Going Viral was being emptied and her team of K-110s were not in position for the hit. She said that she thought someone was ghosting through her computer. Halfway through that call, her line went dead.

But according to the breaking news on TV, the G-55 thing was exploding exactly as planned. And that was the big get. No matter how many of the governors they killed, racial and political tensions in the States were going to skyrocket, taking sales with them. The loss of the Pavilion—if it indeed fell—and the failure at the concert venue were nothing compared to that. Not merely because he’d sell a lot of guns in America for the next dozen years but because it was a model for domestic strikes with limited boots on the ground and limited liability. There were at least thirty-seven client countries whose political leaders would be watching the same news.

He looked up in surprise as the door to his study opened and Mr. Sunday walked in.

“What are you doing here?” said Kuga. “We didn’t have a meeting scheduled.”

“No,” said Sunday, closing the door behind him. “This is a bit of a surprise call.”

“Yeah, well, go make yourself a drink or something. I’m kind of in the middle of this right now.”

Sunday walked over to the desk and, smiling like a crocodile, reached out and plucked the phone from Kuga’s hand.