She sensed that they had arrived at the point of this meeting. "Okay. If I'm not the scapegoat, who is?"

"Peter Godin."

"What?"

Skow blew a perfect blue smoke ring between them. "Think about it. After Peter dies, everything can be explained by a mere exaggeration of the truth. He's been dying of a brain tumor all along. None of us knew it. Peter was a great man, but the tumor affected his mind. He became obsessed with saving his own life. He saw the Trinity computer as the only possible means of doing that. When Fielding and Tennant sus¬pended the project, Godin panicked and ordered their deaths."

Geli leaned back and let the plan sink in. The logic was perfect. It was the Big Lie, which turned everything black to white.

"If we go this way," Skow continued, "Tennant can't hurt us no matter what he says. This is a much more ele¬gant solution than murder."

"There's one problem," Geli said. "If we leave Tennant alive, he'll tell the world that I was the one try¬ing to kill him."

"Will he?" Skow smiled and shook his head. "Who went to Tennant's house to kill him? Whom did Tennant and Weiss see?"

"Ritter."

"Exactly. And Ritter Bock was an employee of Godin Supercomputing before you came on board. Correct?"

Skow seemed to have thought of everything. "Yes."

"Does anyone know you gave Ritter the order to kill Tennant?"

"I never gave such an order."

Skow grinned. "Of course you didn't. I couldn't imagine such a thing. Peter gave the order directly to Ritter, his own private Doberman. Dr. Tennant got lucky and killed Ritter in self-defense. You're as pure as the driven snow, Geli. All you've been doing is following Godin's orders."

"And you?"

"By the time I realized that Fielding didn't die of nat¬ural causes, Ritter was already dead and Tennant was on the run. I've been trying to get to the truth ever since."

Geli kept trying to punch a hole in the story. "And the reason we cremated Fielding's body so quickly?"

"Once we realized he'd been murdered, we suspected a highly infectious biological agent. Nara's advice was to burn the body and all blood samples immediately. That was the only way to maintain the safety of this building."

"Will Nara verify this story?"

"He'll do anything to save his reputation."

Geli got up and began to pace the control center. Skow turned his chair and followed her with his eyes.

"What if Godin succeeds?" she asked. "What if he delivers Trinity before he dies, and it's everything he promised?"

"Ravi says it won't happen. Peter's fading too fast."

The irony of the situation depressed her. "You know, I like Peter Godin. I respect him. You, on the other hand, I don't like at all. I didn't respect you either, until you came up with this. This could work."

"It's going to work. The only missing piece is you."

She saw no option but to cooperate. "Tell me where the other Trinity facility is, and you have a deal."

The confidence left Skow's face. "I'm not at liberty to do that."

"Why not?"

"You'll understand in a minute. I'm going to give you the name of the person who handles security at the other site. You can ask him your questions."

Geli stopped and stared at him. "What kind of game is this?"

"That's the way he told me to handle it, and he's not the kind of person I like to make an enemy of."

"Who the hell is he?"

Skow shook his head. "I'll give you his number."

"I'm not calling anybody until I know who I'm call¬ing."

Skow drew on his cigarette, looking at her with some¬thing like pity. "General Horst Bauer."

Geli's face felt hot. Every bit of pride she'd felt at her Trinity job drained out of her in a sickening rush. "My father is in charge of the other Trinity site?"

"Yes."

"You son of a bitch. Why are he and I both involved in this?"

Despite obvious reluctance to speak, Skow seemed to sense that she wouldn't cooperate further until he had answered.

"It's simple," he said. "Every aspect of Trinity has been stage-managed by Godin from the beginning. Because of your father's military intelligence back¬ground, he always had influence on what types of com¬puters the army used at certain facilities. The Pentagon, various bases, and now Fort Huachuca."

Fort Huachuca, Arizona, was the center of U.S. Military Intelligence, and her father was its commanding officer.

"General Bauer helped secure contracts for Godin Supercomputing from the army," Skow said. "His influ¬ence helped Peter beat out Cray, NEC, all the rest."

"You mean he took money."

"Wads of it. He's got a numbered Cayman account padded by Godin, same as me. The NSA doesn't pay near enough to finance my lifestyle."

"That hypocritical son of a bitch. I thought at least where his country was concerned, he'd-never mind. I should have known better."

"Your father didn't damage the country by pushing Godin supercomputers. They were as good as anything out there. The general just took a little bonus where he found it. That's the way business is done these days."

The scar on Geli's face seemed to pulse with fury. "The army is a service, not a business."

Skow chuckled. "I'd never have pegged you as a romantic."

"Fuck you."

"Anyway, when Peter decided he needed a secret research site, he called your father. Some money changed hands, and the general found us a nice secluded spot where no one would bother us."

"Why was I brought in?"

"Peter was looking for a certain kind of person for your job. Your father suggested you."

Geli began to pace again, blood pounding in her ears. "He knows about all this, doesn't he? Godin dying, the project going down the tubes?"

"Yes. And he's on board. He has a career to save, too."

"Well, fuck him. And fuck you."

"Call him, Geli."

"Is the secret Trinity site at Fort Huachuca?"

"No."

She didn't believe him. There were thousands of acres set aside for weapons testing at the remote Arizona base. On the other hand, her father was an expert at covering his ass. He'd have wanted some deniability if Trinity became a liability and so would have been unlikely to put it at his own base.

She slipped on her headset, hit a computer key, and said, "Major General Horst Bauer. Fort Huachuca, Arizona."

Skow breathed an audible sigh of relief.

The general's aide-de-camp answered the phone.

"General Bauer," Geli snapped.

"The general is unavailable. Who's calling, please?"

"Tell him his daughter is on the phone, Captain."

"Hold, please."

Skow was clearly enjoying this spectacle. She spun her chair so that she wouldn't have to look at his aging Ivy League face.

As she waited, images of her father rose in her mind. Tall and imposing in the Germanic mold, Horst Bauer had been described by his enemies as a blond version of Burt Lancaster's General James Mattoon Scott from Seven Days in May. This was a fair comparison. Yet the stiff martinet seen by the public was not the man Geli knew. She saw the womanizer who had cheated cease¬lessly on his wife and left several illegitimate children abroad. She saw the brute who, upon finding himself embarrassed by his daughter's "wildness," beat her remorselessly with whatever was close to hand. The irony of her life was that she had followed in the foot¬steps of the man she hated. The reason was simple. She'd hated her father for scarring her so deeply, but she'd despised her mother's passiveness even more.

"Well, Geli," said a deep voice that tensed every mus¬cle in her body. "You must be in trouble. That's the only time I hear from you."

She wanted to slam down the phone, but she needed answers. "What do you know about a certain artificial intelligence project?"

"So much for pleasantries. That's a vague question you asked."

"You want specifics? I'm in charge of security for Project Trinity in North Carolina. I'm told there's a secret facility carrying out research for that project. What do you know about that?"