Shadow Puppets (The Shadow 3)

"We don't let him succeed," said John Paul.

"And I thought Peter was the one who loved brinksmanship. Good heavens, Johnny P, you've just explained where his madness comes from. How in the world can you arrange for someone to try to kill you in such a public way that it becomes discovered--and at the same time be absolutely sure that he won't succeed."

"We don't actually let him fire a bullet," said John Paul, a little impatiently. "All we do is gather evidence that he's preparing the attempt. Peter will have no choice but to send him away--and then we can make sure people know why. I may be resented a bit here, but people really like you. They won't like the Beast after he plotted to harm their 'Doce Teresa.'"

"But nobody likes you," said Theresa. "What if it's you he goes for first?"

"Whichever," said John Paul.

"And how will we know what he's plotting?"

"Because I put keyboard-reading programs into all the computers on the system and software to analyze his actions and give me reports on everything he does. There's no way for him to make a plan without emailing somebody about something."

"I can think of a hundred ways, one of which is--he does it himself, without telling anybody."

"He'll have to look up our schedule then, won't he? Or something. Something that will be suspicious. Something that I can show to Peter and force him to get rid of the boy."

"So the way to shoot down the Beast is to paint big targets on our own foreheads," said Theresa.

"Isn't that a marvelous plan?" said John Paul, laughing at the absurdity of it. "But I can't think of a better one. And it's nowhere near as bad as yours. Do you actually believe you could kill somebody?"

"Mother bear protects the cub," said Theresa.

"Are you with me? Promise not to slip a fatal laxative into his soup?"

"I'll see what your plan is, when you actually come up with one that sounds like it might succeed."

"We'll get the beast thrown out of here," said John Paul. "One way or another."

That was the plan--which, John Paul knew, was no plan at all, since Theresa hadn't actually promised him she'd give up on her plot to become a killer-by-stealth.

The trouble was that when he accessed the programs that were monitoring Achilles's computer use, the report said, "No computer use."

This was absurd. John Paul knew the boy had used a computer because he had received a few messages himself--innocent inquiries, but they bore the screen name that Peter had given to the Beast.

But he couldn't ask anybody outright to help him figure out why his spy programs weren't catching Achilles's sign-ons and reading his keystrokes. The word would get around, and then John Paul wouldn't seem quite such an innocent victim when Achilles's plot--whatever it was--came to light.

Even when he actually saw Achilles with his own eyes, logging in and typing away on a message, the report that night--which affirmed that the keystroke monitor was at work on that very machine--still showed no activity from Achilles.

John Paul thought about this for a good long while, trying to imagine how Achilles could have circumvented his software without logging on at least once.

Until it finally dawned on him to ask his software a different question.

"List all log-ons from that computer today," he typed into his desk.

After a few moments, the report came up: "No log-ons."

No log-ons from any of the nearby computers. No log-ons from any of the faraway computers. No log-ons, apparently, in the entire Hegemony computer system.

And since people were logging on all the time, including John Paul himself, this result was impossible.

He found Peter in a meeting with Ferreira, the Brazilian computer expert who was in charge of system security. "I'm sorry to interrupt," he said, "but it's even better to tell you this when both of you are together."

Peter was irritated, but answered politely enough. "Go ahead."

John Paul had tried to think of some benign explanation for his having tried to mount a spy operation throughout the Hegemony computer network, but he couldn't. So he told the truth, that he was trying to spy on Achilles--but said nothing about what he intended to do with the information.

By the time he was done, Peter and Ferreira were laughing--bitterly, ironically, but laughing.