"With all due respect, I don't talk to messenger boys." He tried to shift his weight, but his body hurt no matter what he did. "You wouldn't understand anyway. It's too technical. Why don't you let me have a chat with that genius you've got running the computer? He's the only one around here who could possibly understand what I'm talking about."
And he's the one, Vance told himself, who now holds the key to everything. Remove him and their whole house of cards crumbles.
"You mean the Israeli." He fairly spat out the words. “He's—"
"So, this operation is multinational."
"Peretz is handling the computer."
"Peretz. Is that his name?" Now we're getting somewhere, Vance thought. If I can get in the same room with the bastard, maybe I can rearrange his brain cells.
"He is supposed to be a computer specialist." Moreau's voice betrayed his contempt. "Maybe he is. But he thinks he knows everything. Whenever anybody tries to tell him anything, he just laughs and makes bad jokes. He won't listen to you."
"Well, why don't we give it a shot anyway?"
Moreau examined him closely, still skeptical but beginning to have second thoughts. "Why would you want to do this, anyway? Help us?"
"Like I told you, I figure you're going to end up detonating that bomb somewhere. Frankly I'd just as soon it wasn't fifty feet from where I'm standing, make that sitting. I do have a small sense of self-preservation left. So why don't you do everybody a favor and let me talk to this Peretz? He has to change the radio frequency that detonates the bomb to digital mode. If that thing is controlled with plain old UHF the Cyclops may just set it off before it ever leaves the pad.”