t you've got in mind -- and explain it well
-- or drop it."
Tossing his empty beer bottle at the trash can, Cade said, "You got it.
Agent Phyllis Morey can make anybody look like just about anybody else and she
has her kit with her. At the contest you'd fly in..."
"I'd fly in?!"
"It's the easiest way to instantly prove that you're you, right? You'd get
an intro, do a trick or two, a bunch of people would take a bazillion pictures
of you, and then you'd see or hear an emergency and excuse yourself to fly out
and deal with it. The contest would go on in your honor, but without you, 'cause
you'd be busy having your makeup removed."
"Makeup."
"Yup. At your first public appearance, you wouldn't quite look like you. A
bit more ear, nose, and chin. Wider cheeks. A slightly different skin tone. A
birthmark or a mole. Like that. Then you lose the makeup and get on stage later
as one of the many contestants. You might come close, but you probably won't
win. Sorry 'bout that."
Mandi noticed the way he'd switched from sounding speculative to sounding
rather definite in his last sentence, but she didn't challenge him on it. In
fact, the idea didn't sound quite so insane, after all.
"Of course, you might want to give some more thought to wearing some kind of
a mask when you're on duty," said Cade. "And it probably wouldn't hurt to..."
A rap on the door interrupted whatever he'd been about to say. Cade rose to
go to the door, checked the peephole, and let John into the room.
John nodded to Cade as he hurried toward Mandi, but he stopped well short of
her as he saw her tight expression.
"Well, John?" she asked. "What happened?"
For the first time in the thirty-odd years Cade had known John, the guy
actually looked apologetic.
"Mandi," said John, "We tried. We really did. My people picked up nine
copies and warned everybody, but somebody pulled an end run. A hundred or so
international TV stations and newspapers received an anonymous email that
contained a download link to a website on a Dutch server."
Her expression unchanged, Mandi asked, "And now?"
Shrugging slightly, John said, "We can try to find out who did it and
prosecute him. Or her."
Setting her empty bottle on the desk, Mandi said, "Which helps me not one
damned little bit."
With a sigh, John said, "It's about all we can do."
"Not quite," said Cade. "I told her about my idea for a cont