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Ming lit a cigarette, took a drag, and tapped on theseparating the backseat from the driver The car pulled over to the curb, and the colonel said to Wen Lo, “See you in Paris”

The huskyto a second Roewe sedan that had pulled up behind the first one As Ming got into the second car, he said to the man, “Make sure it’s neat”

As the colonel’s car pulled away from the curb, he tapped out a nus, a man’s voice answered

“Mr Austin?” Ming said

“That’s right,” Austin replied

“I have the infor for”

WHILE THE COLONEL WAS talking on the phone in his car, the husky ot in next to the driver He tapped on the glass behind hiht at hiet when he shot Wen Lo directly in the right eye with a 22 caliber pistol

The shooter slid the glass partition closed and grunted an order to the driver They drove Wen Lo’s warlass eye replaced the one the bullet had vaporized The e attached to the big toe there certified that he had died while being incarcerated in a Chinese prison

The police noted the death on records that were promptly destroyed The body was shipped to a warehouse where the receiver complained about the quality of the merchandise The corpse was dissected, immersed in acetone to eliiven a bath of polymers The muscles and bones were touched up with paint, and the body bent into a standing position, the arm cocked and ready to smash a tennis ball

When the transformed corpse arrived in London to join other bodies in an exhibition that would take it to Paris and New York, a tennis racket was placed in the boney hand

In time, Wen Lo’s skinned body would adorn T-shirts, key chains, refrigeratorexhibition

And, as Colonel Ming had promised, Wen Lo had endless time to work on his backhand

CHAPTER 48

WHEN JOE ZAVALA WASN’T DATING HALF THE FEMALE POPULATION of Washington or tinkering with his Corvette’s engine, he loved figuring out how things worked To Zavala, the holograarishly appointed ship’s salon was nothing but an elaborate engine whose purpose was to send and receive lifelike ies

Zavala prowled through the intricate arrangement of microphones, lenses, lasers, projectors, and computers that surrounded the circular table and three chairs under the hanging cones Austin was standing by, connected by cell phone to Hiraer was an expert on holograraphic woman named Max as the personification of the NUMA computer systeer and sent him photos of electronic or optic devices that Zavala was unable to describe