The Games

Chapter TWENTY-ONE



Silas opened his eyes to bright sunlight pouring through the window of his hotel suite. Vidonia was already gone. His arms wandered across her side of the rumpled bed, and it was still warm. The pillow still cupped the delicate negative of her head.

“Vidonia?” he called.

The suite’s answer was silence. He swung his feet to the plush carpeting and ran a hand through his curly hair. Damn, he felt good. Far too good. He tried not to inspect the reasons closely. It felt like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders, and that was good enough.

He took a long, hot shower, and afterward, while he was toweling himself dry, there came a knock on the door.

“Who is it?”

“Ben.”

Silas wrapped a towel around his midsection, walked to the door, and twisted the knob. Ben stepped inside. He stepped over to the freshly made bed and promptly threw himself back on it, blasting the covers out at the edges. He laced his fingers behind his head, and the smile that came to his face was odd, almost admiring, if a smile could be such a thing.

“What?” Silas said to the strange look.

“I’m trying to decide if I want to kiss you or punch you.”

“You’ve already punched me once. That was your freebie.”

“That’s true. Okay, I’ll kiss you, then.” Ben sat up.

“No, that’s okay, I’ll pass. It’s too early in the morning.”

“It’s noon.”

“It is? Shit, I haven’t slept this long in months.” Silas stepped into the bathroom. “Now, what has you so emotionally aroused this morning?” he asked, through a mouthful of toothpaste. “Has you showing up at my door with kissing or punching on your mind.”

“As if you didn’t know,” Ben said.

“You heard, then, about last night.”

“Yeah. Everybody’s heard.”

“The media?”

“Yeah, but Baskov’s people are playing it down.”

“Have they said who my replacement is going to be?”

“No, I didn’t hear anything about you being replaced.”

Silas stuck his head out the bathroom doorway, toothbrush jutting from one corner of his mouth. “What do you mean?”

“People are talking, but nobody has said anything about you being fired.”

“Shit,” Silas said, sliding back into the bathroom. He spit in the sink. “Nothing about a replacement? Nothing about me being fired? Are you sure?”

“Yeah, so far.”

“That’s strange.”

“What’s strange about it?”

“Well, I guess that means I’m still in charge of this program, then.”

“That seems pretty unlikely.”

“Hmm.” Silas kept brushing his teeth.

“You can’t usually tell your boss to f*ck off and still keep your job,” Ben said. “That sort of thing almost automatically infers a termination of employment. Are you sure Baskov’s people haven’t called you yet?”

“No.” Silas walked out of the bathroom and hit the button on the vid-phone. “The phone still works.”

“Maybe you are still the boss, then.”

“I’m not sure if I should be relieved or disappointed.”

“You’ve got to pick one. Then just go with it.” Silas didn’t smile.

“I myself usually prefer relief to disappointment,” Ben said. “Particularly where matters of unemployment are concerned.”

Silas sat on the edge of the bed. That yoke that had lifted from his shoulders slowly shifted back into its familiar position.

“What are you going to do?” Ben asked.

“I guess I’ll just continue on until somebody says I shouldn’t. Where’s Vidonia?”

“Haven’t seen her. Breakfast, probably. Speaking of, let’s grab something.”

Silas pulled his jeans on, feeling for his wallet. He hit the switch on the way out.


AS THE day progressed, Silas was made aware of several wildly divergent and sensationalized accounts of what had transpired between him and Baskov the night before. The break between the program head and the chair of the Olympic Commission was huge news, and it was covered to varying degrees of accuracy by all the major networks.

In one of the accounts, Silas was described as actually throwing a drink into the old man’s face. Silas shook his head in disbelief as he watched the news programs from his hotel suite and decided that he hated the media even more than he hated cocktail parties.

As Ben had told him earlier, Baskov’s people were definitely putting a minimalist spin on things. In the accounts played during the pre-show special, Silas and Baskov were said to have simply shared a heated discussion over differences of opinion. “Anyone who says otherwise,” Baskov’s planning commissioner said during a televised interview, “is simply attempting to manufacture a story for their own ends. This was a nonevent. The fact of the matter is that these two men are friends, remain friends, and look forward to working with each other in the future.”

“Does this mean that Dr. Williams will remain head of Olympic biodevelopment for the next games?” the blond interviewer asked.

“Dr. Williams has expressed some interest in pursuing other ambitions in the future, but right now he is completely focused on seeing that the U.S. gladiator brings home a gold medal for us all tonight.”

Lying f*ck.

For his own part, Silas decided it best to simply stay out of the public eye altogether. He didn’t trust what he’d say if asked a direct question. It was apparently not politically expedient for Baskov to fire him on the very eve of the competition, so for the time being, Silas still held the reins of the project, however tenuous and temporary his grip. With the situation being what it was, he reasoned his efforts could best be utilized behind the scenes.

Expressing great regret, he canceled all his interviews and instead pushed Ben to the forefront, encouraging the networks to render all their questions to him. The young cytologist took to the limelight like a duck to water, and Silas wondered why he hadn’t made the change earlier.

Silas gave no instructions to his young protégé, but when asked tough questions by interviewers, Ben gave the company line on the relationship between Baskov and Silas. There was no breach, no problem at all. And all’s well that ends in a gold.