Riptide

do you mean? Of course I got here quickly, at least as
    quickly as I wanted to. As I told Rebecca, your defenses are laughable."
    "Get that knife away from her neck. Let her go. You've got me.
    Let her go."
    "No, not yet. Don't try anything stupid or I'll cut her throat. But
    I don't want her dead just yet."
    Thomas saw that he was dressed in black from the ski mask that
    covered both his face and his head to the black gloves on his hands.
    "You're the one who's lost," Thomas said, and he saluted him.
    "There's really no need for you to wear that black mask over your
    head anymore. We all know who you are. As I said, we've been
    waiting fourteen hours for you to finally show up."

    Adam spoke quietly into the wristband. "He can't see me. I'm
    only a shadow at the corner of the balcony door. I can't get him.
    He's got Becca plastered against the front of him, a knife against her
    throat. I can't take the risk, even this close. They'll keep him talking.
    Thomas is good. He'll keep control."
    And he prayed with everything that was in him that it would
    be so.
    "Just keep alert," Gaylan Woodhouse said. "The minute he
    makes a move toward Thomas, he'll ease up on her. Then you take
    him down."

"Damn," Adam said, "now the bastard's pulled a gun out of his
    jacket pocket. It's small, looks like a Colt, the Compact .45. He's
    pointed it straight at Thomas. Oh God." And he concentrated,
    readied himself, saying over and over, Let Beccago, you crazy fuck. Just
    twitch.

    "Turn on the bedside light, Matlock."
    Thomas walked slowly into the bedroom, leaned over, and
    switched on the light. He straightened.
    "Now, don't move. Those draperies are open. There's probably a
    sniper out there, and I don't want the bastard to have a clean shot.
    He'll get you, Rebecca, if he pulls the trigger."
    Thomas said, "I wanted very much for you to be my old enemy,
    but you aren't. You're something far more deadly than Vasili, something
    deadly and monstrous that he spawned. Perhaps after he
    brainwashed you, he realized what he'd produced, realized that he'd
    unleashed uncontrolled, unrelenting evil, and that's why he kept
    you away from his new family. He didn't want the evil he'd
    spawned and nurtured to live in his own house, to be close to all
    those innocent, pure lives. Pull off the mask, Mikhail, -we know
    who you are."
    Stone-dead silence, then, "Damn you, you can't know, you can't!
    No one knows anything about me. I don't exist. No records show
    me as Vasili Krimakov's son. I've covered everything. It isn't possible."
    "Oh yes, we know. Even though the KGB tried to erase you, to
    protect you, we found out all about you."
    "Damn you, pull those draperies closed, now!"
    Thomas pulled them closed, knowing that now Adam was blind
    to what was going on in the room. He turned and said slowly,

"Take off the mask, Mikhail. It really looks rather silly, like a little
    boy playing hoodlum."
    Slowly, his movements jerky, furious, he pulled off the black
    mask. Then he shoved Becca over toward the bed. Thomas caught
    her, held her close to his side. But she moved away from him. She
    sat down on the bed, drew her legs up.
    Thomas stared at Vasili Krimakov's son, Mikhail. There was some
    resemblance to his father in the high, sharp cheekbones, the wide-set
    eyes, the whiplash-lean body, but the dark, mad eyes, those were
    surely his mother's eyes. Thomas could still see her eyes, wide, staring
    up at him.
    Becca knew Mikhail had wanted shock, but it was denied him
    when he realized they knew who he was. Still, he threw back his
    head and said, "I am my father's son. He loved me. He molded me
    to be like him. I am here, his avenger."
    His dramatic moment got nothing except a laugh from Becca.
    "Hi, Troy," she said, giving him a small wave. "Cute, preppy
    name. Tell me, what if I'd decided to go out with you that night after
    you planted that little micro homing chip in my upper arm?
    How would you have gotten out of it?" She said to her father, "I
    told you how he managed to have the arm of that big old chest
    machine swing into me as I was walking by, and then he was right
    there, patting me, making sure I was okay, flirting with me. That
    was when you planted that little chip in my arm, isn't it, Troy? You
    were good. I didn't feel a thing, just the sting from that machine
    arm hitting me. It hurt a little longer than it should have, but who
    would really notice?"
    "No," he said, shaking his head back and forth. "This isn't possible.
    You