Time Was Read Online Free

business world, and because of it you could never tell the difference between duplicity and opportunity.”
    Robillard tilted his head to one side, quiet amusement momentarily in his eyes. “Does this just come to you or do you write it all down ahead of time and memorize it?”
    Preston swallowed.
    Hard.
    And it hurt.
    Robillard was trying to upset him, needle him, throw off his concentration with irrelevant humor. He just knew it.
    Preston leaned forward on his desk. “They won’t make it, Zac. Even if they manage through some fluke or divine intervention to get inside the compound, they’ll never get inside this building. I designed tonight’s security programs myself. Remember the old ‘Catherine Wheel’ theory we concocted back at WorldTech?”
    Something jarred behind Robillard’s eyes. “You didn’t? ”
    Preston felt even stronger, even more in control now.
    â€œUh-huh. And it works , Zac. Only for short periods of time—in this case, five-and-a-half minutes—but it works.”
    Robillard wiped some perspiration from his forehead. “The Catherine Wheel program was designed as a game on paper! Lord, Sam, you could wipe out half, if not all, of your mainframe computers, having that many deliberately—”
    â€œâ€”if the program ran for more than a quarter of an hour, yes, but right now it doesn’t.” Another look at his watch. “I reiterate, Zac: They aren’t going to make it.”
    â€œYeah, they are. I promised them Italian food later if things went well. They really love Italian, especially when someone else pays for it.”
    â€œMust get awfully expensive for you.”
    Then Zac said something Preston wasn’t expecting: “Oh, I fully expect it’ll be your treat tonight, Sam.”
    â€œYou’re that confident in their abilities?”
    Zac gestured toward the open briefcase containing ten thousand dollars in cash on Preston’s desk. “You think I’d have taken you up on this if I weren’t?”
    Beside Zac’s rather beat-up briefcase was an expensive attaché; this, too, was open, and also held ten thousand dollars in cash. Preston ran a hand over the money in both, a gleam in his eyes. “Hard to say, Zac. When we were both at WorldTech, I always had this sneaking suspicion that there was a reckless spirit hiding somewhere in all that girth.”
    â€œThis,” said Zac, slapping a hand to his protruding belly, “is not girth. I prefer to think of it as muscle in slumber.”
    Both men laughed, but not too loudly. Then Preston turned back to his window, hands clasped confidently behind his back, emperor of all he surveyed.
    After a moment, he shifted his gaze to a darker area of the window and began surreptitiously studying the inverse reflection of Robillard’s face.
    Preston supposed that a lot of people—women in particular—would deem Zac Robillard’s face “romantic.”
    Maybe.
    Lucky S.O.B. had probably never exploited it to his advantage.
    At a glance, it would be tempting to interpret Robillard’s demeanor as an uneasy marriage between the manic and melancholy—or simply world-weariness kept at bay with occasionally forced good humor—but a close look into his soft brown eyes would soon reveal the anger, grief, frustration, and fear roiling beneath the surface of calm that he often fought to maintain. Of all Robillard’s characteristics, this was the one that most unnerved Preston when he was face-to-face with the man: His eyes were haunted by phantoms. Beneath their surface, countless ghosts—perhaps of dead loved ones, or youthful idealism, or even belief in a world where scientific breakthroughs were for the benefit of all mankind, not just (as Robillard used to complain at WorldTech) those who could wield Damoclesean power to ensure that they chose who could and could not benefit—all these ghosts