"You greedy prick." I was considering just strangling him on the spot, nice and uncomplicated. "Noda's not here for anybody but himself. He's—"
"That's not the way I see it." He glanced over toward The Man, who was still silent as a sphinx.
"You wouldn't have the brains to understand even if we told you. But maybe there's something you can comprehend." I glanced at the metal grip of the Uzi on Noda's desk. One lightning move and it was in my hand. "I'm not going to let you do this."
"It's already done, pal." He lifted his own Uzi and leveled it at my forehead, grinning, his little idea of a joke. "I've got that NEC mainframe out there programmed for weeks of trading. Billions . . . Pow!" He jerked the barrel upward, then continued, "Way I've got it rigged, ain't nobody can turn it off now. We'd just as well all go fishing."
"Jim Bob, take care with that gun. Somebody might just decide to ram it down your scrawny throat."
"Ain't gonna be you, buddy." He reached for the champagne bottle again, no longer grinning.
"Mr. Walton." Finally Noda spoke again. "I assure you this is for the best. What you two were planning was very ill-considered. Not to mention that, if I'd actually permitted you to sink Dai Nippon's capital into some volatile commodity and then manipulate the markets, you might have given our institutional investors an enormous loss of confidence in my program. I have a responsibility to make sure that never happens." He studied Tam. "Dr. Richardson, you especially disappointed me. You betrayed my trust, something I always find unforgivable."
"You betrayed my trust." She looked ready to explode. "Lied to me, exploited me, used me. You perverted everything I had planned—"
"As I've explained, this had become necessary. There was no other way."
"How about Ken, and probably Allan Stern?" she interrupted. "Was taking their lives 'necessary' too?"